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A PLEA FOE LIBERTY 



If every action wliicli is good or evil in man at ripe years were to 
Le under pittance, prescription, and compulsion, what were virtue 
but a name, what praise could be then due to well doing, what 
gramercy to be sober, just, or continent ? 

They are not skilful considerers of human things who imagine to 
remove sin, by removing the matter of sin ; 

Suppose we could expel sin by this means ; look how much we 
thus expel of sin, so much we expel of virtue : for the matter of 
them both is the same : remove that, and ye remove them both 
alike. 

Milton, Areopagitica : A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing. 



PLEA FOR LIBERTY 



AN ARGUMENT AGAINST 
SOCIALISM AND SOCIALISTIC LEGISLATION 



CONSISTING OF AN INTRODUCTION BY 

HEEBEET SPEI^J-QEE 

AND ESSAYS BY VARIOUS WRITERS 



EDITED BY 



THOMAS MACKAY 



AUTHOR OF "THE ENGLISH POOR 




NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1891 



■N\M 



Authorized Edition. 



Ail 

8 jif r 32 



ESSAYS AND CONTRIBUTORS. 



PAGE. 



Introduction. — From Freedom to Bondage . . . i 
By HERBERT SPENCER. 

T. The Impracticability of Socicdism . . .29 
By Edward Stanley Robertson. 

II. The Limits of Liberty . . . . , 6'^ 

By Wordsworth Donisthorpe. 

III. Liberty for Labour 109 

By George Howell, M.P. 

IV. State Socialism in the Antipodes . . .145 

By Charles Eaireield. 

Y, The Discontent of the WorJcing-Classes . .301 

By Edmund Vincent. 

VI. Investment . . . . . . . .537 

By Thomas Mackay, 

VII. Free Education 2,61 

By Rev. B. H. Alford. 

VTTI. The Housing of the Working-Classes and of the 

Poor . 275 

By Arthur Raffalovich. 



vi Essays and Contributors. 

PAGE. 

IX. The Evils of State Trading as illustrated by the 

Post Office 305 

By FiiEDEEicK Millar. ^ 

X. Free Libraries . . . . . ... 329 

By M. D. O'Brien. 

XI. The State and Electrical Distribution . . ^^^ 

By F. W. Beauchamp Gordon. 

XII. The True Line of Deliverance . . . '379 
By Hon. Auberon Herbert. 



PRE FA CE. 



The Essays contained in the present volume have a 
common purpose, which is sufficiently indicated on the title- 
page. The various writers, however, approach the subject 
from different points of view, and are responsible for their 
own. contributions and for nothing else* 

As will be readily seen from a glance at the table of 
contents, no attempt has been made to present a complete 
survey of the "controversy between Socialists and their 
opponents. To do this many volumes would have been 
necessary. The vast extent of the questions involved in 
this controversy will explain the exclusion of some familiar 
subjects of importance, and the inclusion of others which, 
if less important, have still a bearing on the general 
argument. All discussion of the Poor Law, for instance^ the 
most notable of our socialistic institutions, and its disastrous 
influence on the lives of the poor, has been omitted. The 
subject has often been dealt with, and the arguments are 
familiar to all educated readers. It seemed superfluous to 
include a reference to it in the present volume. 

The introduction and the first and second articles deal 
with theoretical aspects of the question. The papers 
which follow may be described as illustrative. Mr. Howell 
traces the gradual advance of the working-class on the 
path of liberty. Mr. Fairfield and Mr. Vincent describe 
socialistic influences at work in an English colony and in 
the London streets. Mr. Mackay's paper is an endeavour 



vlii Preface, 

to point out the disadvantage of monopoly, and the advan- 
tage of giving to free investment the largest possible sphere 
of action. The objections to ' Free ' Education are very, 
briefly set out by Mr. Alford, who takes a practical view 
of the subject, and declines to discuss the larger question 
of compulsory education as being for the moment at any 
rate beyond the range of practical politics. M. Arthur 
Eaffalovich may be introduced to English readers as one 
of the secretaries of the SocieU d'Mudes £lconomiques re- 
cently founded in Paris, a frequent contributor to the 
Journal des ^conomistes, and author of an excellent 
work, Le logement de Vouvrier et du pauvre. His article 
deals historically and from the cosmopolitan point of 
view with the question of the Housing of the Poor. The 
difficulty, he argues, is being overcome gradually, in the 
same way as other difficulties in the path of human progress 
have been overcome, by the solvent power of free human 
initiative. The Post Office is often quoted by persons of 
socialist proclivities as an example of the successful or- 
ganisation of labour by the State. Mr. Millar's paper points 
out that this department has not escaped from defects 
inherent in all State-trading enterprises. These are tolerable 
when they exist in a service comparatively simple and 
unimportant like the Post Office, but if Government monopoly 
were extended to more important and complicated industries, 
the inherent incapacity of compulsory collectivism would, 
it is argued, play havoc with human progress. The attempt 
of Free Library agitators to make their own favourite form 
of recreation a charge on the rates is criticised by Mr. O'Brien 
as unjust to those who love other forms of amusement and 
generally as contrary to public policy. Mr. Gordon, writing 
from the point of view of his profession, explains how the 
business of the electrical engineer has been let and hindered 
by the ill-considered, but no doubt well-intentioned, inter- 
ference of the State. Mr. Auberon Herbert's paper contains 



Preface. Ix 

a criticism on the present attitude of Trade Unionism, and 
proposes for the consideration of working-class associations a 
new policy of usefulness. 

It will be seen from the foregoing epitome of the volume 
that some of the illustrations chosen are in themselves of 
comparatively small importance. But the great danger in this 
matter lies in the fact that ' plain men ' do not appreciate the 
enormous cumulative effect of these many small infractions of 
sound principle. They do not seem to realise that all this 
legislation means the gradual and insidious advance of a 
dull and enervating pauperism. The terrible tale of the 
degradation of manhood caused by the old poor law, was un- 
folded to the country in the judicial language of the Poor Law 
Commissioners. A similar burden of impotency is being day 
by day laid on all classes, but more especially on our poorer 
classes, by the perpetual forestalling of honest human en- 
deavour in every conceivable relation of life. While this 
weakening of the fibre of character is going on, the burden 
of responsibility to be carried ' by the State grows every 
day heavier. The difficulty of returning even a portion of 
this burden to the healthful influence of private enterprise 
and initiative is always increasing. 

If men will grant for a moment, and for the sake of argu- 
ment that, as some insist, our compulsory rate -supported 
system of education is wrong ; that it is injurious to the 
domestic life of the poor; that it reduces the teacher 
to the position of an automaton; that it provides a quality 
of teaching utterly unsuited to the wants of a labouring 
population which certainly requires some form of technical 
training ; that, here, it is brought face to face with its own 
incompetence, for some of the highest practical authorities 
declare that the technical education given in schools is a farce ; 
that therefore it bars the way to all free arrangements between 
parents and employers, and to the only system of technical 
education which deserves the name ; — if this or even a part of 



X Preface, 

it is true, if at best our educational system is a make-shift 
not altogether intolerable, how terrible are the difficulties 
to be overcome before we can retrace our steps and foster into 
vigorous life a new system, whose early beginnings have been 
repressed and strangled by the overgrowth of Government 
monopoly. 

Those who still have an open mind should consider care- 
fully this aspect of the question. Each addition to the 
responsibility of the State adds to the list of ill-contrived 
solutions of difficulty, and to the enlargement of the sphere of 
a stereotyped regimentation of human life. Inseparable from 
this obnoxious growth is the repression of private experiment 
and of the energy and inventiveness of human character. 
Instead thereof human character is degraded to a parasitic 
dependence on the assistance of the State, which after all 
proves to be but a broken reed. 

If the view set out in this volume is at all correct, it is very 
necessary that men should abandon the policy of indifference, 
and that they should do something to enlarge the atmosphere 
of Liberty. This is to be accomplished not by reckless and 
revolutionary methods, but rather by a resolute resistance to 
new encroachments and by patient and statesmanlike en- 
deavour to remove wherever practicable the restraints of 
regulation, and to give full play over a larger area to the 
creative forces of Liberty, for Liberty is the condition pre- 
cedent to all solution of human difficulty. 

T. M. 



SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS, 



INTRODUCTIOlSr.— FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE, 



I. The Impkacticability of Socialism:. 



Limits of the discussion. Previous 
essential questions — Is the end de- 
sirable ? Does justice require it ? 
Page 29 

Affirmative of both questions pro- 
visionally conceded. Protest against 
unauthorised inferences . . 29 

Inequalities in Nature. Instances. 
Varying length of days and in- 
fluence on human affairs. Drought 
*n tropics, rainfall in British Is- 
lands. Varying influence of climate 
on health {note) .... 30-31 

Human nature and human society 
are parts of nature. Socialists argue 
as if they were not . . . 31-32 

Schaffle's Quintessence, the most busi- 
nesslike exponent of Socialism . 32 

Inequality the basis of the Socialist 
complaint. Pallacies relating to 
'millionaires and proletariat' . 33 

Summary of Schaffle's book . 34-35 

Collective Production and Distribu- 
tion practically tested. How would 
demand for clothing and its supply 
be regulated? 36-37 

Schaffle's vagueness on this point. 
Distribution according to ' Social 
labour time.' How are the relative 
values of different kinds of labour 
to be ascertained ? . . . . 38 

Fallacy of Socialism concerning La- 
bour. Labour has no value in and 
for itself 39-41 

But has an accidental value which is 



inseparable, though it affords no 
standard of exchange . . 42-43 
Exchange value automatically esti- 
mated in money. Socialists would 
abolish money, and substitute a 
clumsy form of inconvertible paper 

43-44 

How could an inventor's labour be 
estimated? Watt and Boulton . 45 

How do actual Governments deal with 
improvements and the supersession 
of obsolete methods ? The Board of 
Trade and Trinity House on Light- 
house Illuminants . . . 45-47 

Is a State department a good produc- 
ing or distributing machine ? . 47 

Favourite instance — the Post Office. 
Its success admitted, subject to 
qualifications. Proofs given that 
the Post Office is not successful qua 
State department, but for other 
reasons 47-49 

Government not solely to blame. All 
industries conducted on large scale 
liable to routine and 'red tape' 

49-50 
Objections answered. Joint Stock 
principle still on its trial. Its way 
was prepared by private enterprise. 
Large capital of Joint Stock Com- 
panies counterbalances but does 
not neutralise advantages of pri- 
vate management . . . 50-51 
Summary : State Departments are 
neither good producers, good dis- 



xu 



Synopsis of Contents. 



tributors, nor good employers of 
labour 52 

The population question. The task 
of collective authorities. Practical 
tests 52 

Schaffle does not advocate restriction 
on multiplication. Other writers 
ignore it 52-54 

Mill's views on this topic. France 
and its population question. France 
and Socialism 54-5^ 



Suggestions of English philanthro- 
pists — their unpractical character 

56 
Summary, and recapitulation of test 
questions. Socialism and the ' resi- 
duum.' Must we imprison or flog 
shiftless persons ? . . . 56-57 
General Summary of the argument. 
Conclusion. The Quintessence of 
Individualism .... 58-60 



II. The Limits of Libebty. 



Absurdity of supposing that the power 
of the State can be curtailed ah 
extra. Only by influencing the 
will of the efiective majority — the 
ruling body. Let us avoid mean- 
ingless abstractions. Doctrine of 
Free-will applied to States . . 63 

Reform must be gradual. State- 
action was certainly necessary in 
the past, is probably necessary in 
the present, and may be necessary 
and beneficent in the remote future 

66 

The State must guide its conduct by 
more or less general principles ; 
which, however, cannot be reached 
a priori. Compare the rules of pri- 
vate morality 70 

Various attempts to discover an abso- 
lute principle of government : — 
Absolute freedom short of injuring 
others : obedience to the will of 
the people, of the ruling body, of 
the numerical majority. Social 
equality. Absolute anarchy. Lais- 
sez faire, or non-interference with 
acts of willing parties. The State 
never to take the initiative, but 
only to act at the instance of pri- 
vate interested individuals 70-74 

Conclusion that limits of liberty can- 
not be discovered by deduction. In 
law or State-morals we must rest 
content (as in private morality) with 



inductions from experience . 74 

Necessity of the comparative method 
of enquiry into historic tendencies. 
State interference a diminishing 
quantity. But while dwindling in 
extensity, it increases in intensity 
75-80 

In the field remaining to it, it is 
more thorough and more regular. 
Tendency towards a Least Commcoi 
Bond in associations of men for a 
common end. Survey of State 
interference with non-aggressive 
acts of citizens : — games, sports, 
fine arts, gambling, betting, an- 
aesthetics, irregular sexual indul- 
gences, &c . 80-90 

But besides State despotism, we have 
other despotisms : — Mrs. Grundy's 
rules, the rules of social clubs, 
cricket clubs, the Jockey Club, the 
Stock Exchange, Lloyd's, benevo- 
lent associations, learned societies, 
local political organisations, and all 
forms of voluntary combination. 
Despotism must be combated in 
all these little States as well as in 
the widest. The same spirit of 
intolerance is apt to underlie all 

90-9 8 

Difficulties in the way of government 
on the voluntary principle. Appa- 
rent need for some form of coercion. 
Difficulty of apportioning shares of 



Synopsis of Contents, 



Xlll 



common benefits. On the principle 
of justice ? What is it ? Practical 
illustration. Several distinct mean- 
ings 98-105 

To conclude, we cannot build upon 
abstractions, but only upon more 
and more general principles reached 



by induction from the innumerable 
experiences of mankind. These 
middle principles are the per- 
manent principles of the law as it 
is, and as it increasingly tends to 
become, and not as it appears in the 
distorting mirror of language 105 



III. Liberty for Labour. 



The problem stated. What are the 
limits of law in the world of 
labour? 109 

The question must be considered 
historically iii 

I. The Guild, originally a voluntary 
association within the state, its 
usefulness, its deterioration, its 
exclusiveness 1 1 1 

II. Modern ' levelling up ' legislation 
the consequence of earlier repres- 
sive legislation 113 

The suppression of the guilds followed 
by class legislation , . . . 115 
The triumph of class tyranny . 116 
The long struggle of the working 
class to establish its free initiative, 
and right of voluntary combina- 
tion 116 

III. The repression of the right of 
combination naturally produced 
a demand for protective legisla- 
tion 117 

The horrors of the early history of 
factories and mines . . . . 117 

The objects of past industrial legis- 
lation — (i) protection of women 
and children, (2) the protection of 
life and limb, (3) the repeal of last 
remnants of class-legislation . 118 

IV. The principles which underlie 
the Factory and Workshop Acts — 
(i) Protection of Women and Chil- 
dren IT9 

V. (2) Protection of Life and 
Limb 120 



VL (3) The Public Health Acts 1 20 

VII. Interference hitherto has aimed 
at redressing the evil results of 
earlier class-legislation : the liberty 
of the adult male labourer has been 
respected 121 

VIII. Sufficient allowance must be 
made for the classes who have 
suffered from early legislation. 
Liberty, the refuge for the protec- 
tion of all, a true principle, but as 
yet only dimly understood . 122 

IX. The growing demand for legisla- 
tion with regard to — 

(a) Protection of life and limb ; 
(})) Compensation for injury ; 
(c) Public Health . . . . 123 
These involve no new principle, and 
are intended to enable the state to 
act fairly between its citizens 123 
{d) An extension of the Factory 
and Workshop Acts is open to 
more doubt 125 

X. The evils of the Sweating System 
admitted — but what is the remedy? 

126 

XI. The Sweating System represents 
the evil side of domestic industry. 
But are workers ready to welcome 
the inspector in every home ? 127 

XII. The reasonableness of the desire 
to mitigate the strain of industrial 
life. But the possibilities of the 
case must be considered . . 128 

XIII. Proposal for a legal Eight Hours 
day, the objections stated . 129 



XIV 



Synopsis of Contents, 



XIV. The same continued — 

(i) It is impracticable . . . 132 

(2) It is an oppressive and incon- 
venient restraint on liberty . 133 

(3) The dictatorship of inspectors 
insupportable 134 

(4) It would be inoperative and 
could not be enforced . . . 135 

XV. Proposal to extend Factory and 
Workshop Acts 

(i) To a regulation of men's la- 
bour 136 

(2) To all domestic industry. 136 

XVI. The application of these Acts 



to domestic industry means its 
extinction. Are we prepared for 
this? 137 

XVII. Tyranny of the new Trade 
Unionism, its claim to a monopoly 
of labour 138 

XVIII. The policy of the new Union- 
ists condemned. Liberty to act a 
just claim, but not the power to 
coerce 139 

XIX. The multiplication of law peri- 
lous, the demand for it indicates 
a decadence of manhood . . 140 



IV. State Socialism in the Antipodes. 



Eecent Colonial State policy, legis- 
lation and results thereof, in- 
teresting to modern legislators and 
political students. Eeasons for lack 
of information in this country on 
subject 145-150 

Sir C. Dilke's 'Problems of Greater 
Britain.' Defects in his method of 
enquiry ; but useful indication that 
Australian labour, fiscal, financial, 
public works, land, educational, 
and population problems are bound 
up with dominant policy of State 
Socialism and State interference. 
Why prominence rightly given by 
Sir C. Dilke to one particular 
colony. His sanguine view of public 
accounts and railway finance in 
Australia. Observations on actual 
position there .... 150-156 

Sir Charles Dilke's omission to ex- 
plain whether primary objections to 
State Socialism do, or do not, hold 
good in Australia. What he ex- 
pected to find among dominant 
State Socialistic party and Labour 
there. Eeasons why ' revolutionary ' 
methods are superfluous. Practical 
aims and indifference to abstract 
ideas noticed . . . . 15 7-16 1 

The ' Eight hours ' rule in Victoria. 
The various, essentially 'local,' 



conditions which contribute to its 
success, and at same time obscure 
its true economic efPect, examined 
in detail. Influence of reckless 
State and Corporate borrowing. 
European ' investment money.' 
Power conceded to Trade Unionists 
and subserviency of politicians. 
On the policy of State Socialism 
generally, and on the fortunes of 
* capital ' and 'labour' in Australia. 
161-173 

Free, secular and compulsory educa- 
tion in Victoria. Worth examina- 
tion, because similar policy advo- 
cated here. Its essentially ' social- 
istic ' basis. Eeasons for its enor- 
mous popularity. Main grounds of 
objection to it by a group of public 
men in colony considered at length. 
Financial barriers to change or re- 
form in the system. The ' Eoman 
Catholic grievance ' considered. 
Why unredressed. Secular, or God- 
less education necessary result of 
monopoly by democratic ' State.' 
Mr. John Morley's olive branch to 
Catholics and Jews . . 173-190 

Sketch of educational policy in 
Victoria since 1851. Weak points 
of existing system summarized 1 90 

' Early closing of shops.* Sir Charles 



Synopsis of Contents, 



XV 



Dilke's favourable report. The Act 
of 1885, its mischievous, ludicrous, 
and unexpected results and subse- 
quent virtual repeal in Melbourne 
and suburbs. Influence of State 



Socialism and its concomitants 
upon national character, industry, 
and development in Australia 

191-198 



V. Wokking-Class Discontent. 



Discontent not necessarily igno- 
ble 201 

The discontent of the unskilled la- 
bourer 202 

Its connection with Socialism . 202 
The leaders of London Socialism 202 

Mr. John Burns 204 

His opinions 205 

The connection of the Socialists with 

recent strikes 206 

The Dock Strike 207 

The Dock Labourers Union . . 208 
An effort to obtain larger wages 209 
A monopoly of work claimed for the 

Union 209 

The Gas Strike 212 

Unconnected with Socialist agita- 
tion 212 

The New Unionism adopts the con- 
fiscatory articles of the Socialist 

creed 214 

But the working-man rebels as a rule 
against legislation seeking to regu- 
late his own conduct . . . 215 
With regard to the legality of me- 
thods employed on recent strikes 

217 
Illegal menaces 218 



The state of the law as to illegal con- 
spiracy 219 

Monopoly of labour cannot be con- 
ceded to Unions 219 

Liberty to ' strike ' must be admitted 
provided always current agree- 
ments are fulfilled .... 220 

Union of Unions, for the purpose of 
coercing non-unionists an intoler- 
able tyranny 220 

Profit-sharing and sliding-scale com- 
mittees offer a solution of the 
conflict between labour and capi- 
tal 221 

Combination of labourers will be met 
by combination of capitalists 222 

The struggle if it comes will be 
serious 222 

The interest of all parties points to 
arbitration with proper sanction 
as a means of avoiding ruinous 
conflict 223 

In the meantime theoretical socialism 
is no real danger 223 

Men are not socialists by nature, 
though they may use socialistic 
shibboleths when it suits their 
own private interest . . , 223 



VI. Inyestment. 



Shall the Tenure of Capital be Com- 
mon or Private ? .... 227 
Experiments made in both theories 

to be considered, viz, 
(i) Capital invested by the State ; 
(2) Capital invested under State- 



supported monopoly ; (3) Capital 
invested privately and ' freely ' 
228 
Digression as to limitation of term 
" free ' investment. Security of 
property and a due performanx>e 



XVI 



Synopsis of Contents, 



of contract conceivable apart 
from official enforcement. Legal 
definition of rights of property 
liable to error. But men will 
not submit to anarchy or order 
to arrive at a true definition. 
Change must be gradual 229-233 
Characteristics of the three tenures 
of capital above-mentioned. 
I. State Capital. 

Deteriorated State Capital not writ- 
ten off 233 

Inefficiency of public spending de- 
partments 235 

Chaotic book-keeping of local au- 
thorities 235 

Monopolies slow to adopt improve- 
ments 236 

Enterprising monopolies even more 
pernicious. Instances of Bristol 

and Preston 237 

The Question of Sewerage considered. 

A monopoly of old date . . 238 

Is the apparatus owned by this 
monopoly approved by Science ? 
The opinion of an expert. Sug- 
gestion that the present system 
bears hardly on the poor . 239 
Obstruction caused by monopoly to 
adventurous investment. 

Suggestion that sub-ways for pipes 
and wires might be a profitable 
investment, but too adventurous 
for public bodies .... 240 
Discredit of local government. Its 
usurpations prevent subdivision 
and specialisation of enterprise. 
It monopolises some of the most 
important services of civilised 
life — result a disability of enter- 
prise not meekly to be accepted 
as inevitable 242 

Members of vestries, &c., not worse 
than their neighbours ; their 
duties impossible , . . . 243 
The Post Office Savings Bank. 

A doubt suggested as to its useful- 
ness 243 



II. Private Monopoly Capital. 
The same arguments applicable 245 

The case of Eailways considered. 
The importance of cheap transport. * 
High cost of transport a cause of 
the congestion of population in 

towns 247 

The question of trusts as affected by 
the railway monopoly . . 247 
The Liquor Traffic. 

Suggestion that legislation has been 
prohibitive not of liquor, but of 
rational amusement . . . 249 
Two minor digressions. 

(a) The employment of Philan- 
thropic Capital, its usefulness 
varies inversely to its philan- 
thropy 250 

(b) The gratuitous use of capital 
an absurd idea . . . . 251 

III. Private or Free Investment. 

Its advantage to the consumer al- 
ready proved beneficial . . 252 

Its infiuenee on character even 
more important . . . . 253 

Necessity for each man to regulate 
his creation of responsibilities by 
a reference to his property 253 

Advantages to character from a 
more widely extended owner- 
ship of property . . . . 255 

The problem of the future is the 
application of capital to the ser- 
vice of the poor .... 256 

To be met by a larger performance 
of the duty of private investment 
as the complement of the duty 
of labour ...... 256 

Conclusion. 

Against confiscation, as only repeat- 
ing on a larger scale the injustice 
of the past 257 

But above all against confiscation 

which transfers capital to the 

unprofitable tenure of the State 

257 



Synopsis of Contents, 



xvu 



VII. Feee Education. 



The question to be considered on its 
merits, apart from the bribes offer- 
ed by political parties . . . 261 

Proposed order of discussion. The 
arguments in favour of 'Free' 
schools. The objections urged to 
the arguments. The general ob- 
jections 262 

I. The new financial burden to be 
thrown on the rates is justified, 
because 

(i) Free Education is the logical 
sequence of the Act of 1870 263 

(2) If education is compulsory, it 
shoidd be free 263 

(3) Practically both political par- 
ties have accepted the principle, 
and resistance is useless . 264 

(4) Sentimental argument based 
on the word 'Free.' Absurd- 
ity of the terms ' Free,' ' Na- 
tional,' 'Voluntary,' with regard 
to schools 265 

II. These arguments might prevail 
if the principle of the new proposal 
were sound 265 

The poverty of some is made an 
excuse to give to all . . . . 265 

The proposal involves a new depar- 
ture 266 

The State has hitherto dealt only 
with exceptional classes of chil- 
dren 266 

These are — pauper schools for chil- 
dren whose parents cannot support 
them 266 

Industrial schools for uncontrollable 
children 266 



Assisted education for children whose 
parents cannot pay full cost . 266 

The proposal now is — to pay for all 
out of the rates, whether they re- 
quire it or not 267 

Will not this prove an injury to 
the self-discipline of English cha- 
racter? 267 

The race will not improve physically 
by declining hardship, nor morally 
by evading duty 26S 

The parental tie already weak among 
the poorer classes . . . . 268 

The present proposal fatal to parental 
responsibility 268 

Free education not comparable to the 
occasional and exceptional assist- 
ance of endowments for educa- 
tion 269 

A residue of duty should be left for 
parents 269 

Can this risk of deterioration of cha- 
racter be safely incurred ? . 269 

Irregular attendance at school not 
due to fees but to 'washing day,' 
'errands,' &c 270 

The sentimental desire to give away 
what we prize for nothing — ten- 
dency of free gifts to be little 
valued 271 

This proposed deposition of fathers 
from their fatherhood is an indig- 
nity to be resented . . . . 271 

Knowledge gained for them at the 
cost of self-denial the best inherit- 
ance a man can give his children. 
Parents urged not to part with this 
opportunity of well-doing . . 272 



XVIU 



Synopsis of Contents, 



VIIL The Housing of the Working-Classes and 
OP THE Poor. 



Universal solicitude felt at the pre- 
sent day for the lot of the Poor. 
Liberal economists share in this 
feeling, but, mindful of the sinister 
effects of legislation like the English 
Poor Law, deprecate rash action 

275 

The pretensions of sanitary reformers. 
M. Leon Say urges the necessity of 
scrutinising their claims . . 276 

A new '89 necessary to combat the 
encroachments of sanitarians 

276 {note) 

This universal meddlesomeness not 
the best way of attaining end in 
view 277 

A statement of the demands made by 
German Socialists . . . . 277 

Proposals made in Prance . . 278 
Do. in England . . 279 

A summary of the proposals of 
would-be reformers . . . . 279 

Importance of the subject . . 280 

Unsatisfactory nature of present con- 
dition 280 

The difficulty not local but world- 
wide 280 

Part of social problem equally with 
questions of food and clothing 281 

The interference of the State dis- 
courages private enterprise . 281 

Sanitary regulations innumerable 
have existed, but the indifference 
and opposition of the inhabitants 
have rendered them inoperative 

282 

The difficulty one of cost. Poor people 
cannot pay a high rent . . 283 

Improvement in ways of locomotion 
of first-class importance . . 283 

Necessity of keeping public interest 
alert ' . . . . 284 

Useful part played by various societies 

284 



Proposal for an International Society 
for the study of the subject . 285 

The increasing success of private 
enterprise in the business of house- 
building proof that such invest- 
ment is remunerative . . . 286 

The supply still limited, but the 
elite of the working-class provided 
for ; a consequent improvement 
throughout 286 

The building of industrial villages in 
France, England, America, Prussia 

287 

Other forms of private enterprise 

I. Building Societies. 

For the purchase of a house by instal- 
ments ... 288 

Suggestion that the reserves of 
Savings Banks should co-operate 
in the building of workmen's 
dwellings 292 

II. The Joint Stock Company (for 

letting or selling small 

houses). 
Successful case of Mulhouse . . 292 
Excessive sub-letting by working- 
class landlords . . . 292 (note) 

III. Societies for the licilding of 

blocks of dwellings. 
Their necessity when the building 
has to be done in the centre of a 

large town 296 

Instance of a loan from a Savings 

Bank 297 

The system of Miss Octavia Hill 297 
M. Coste's scheme of 'Tenant Thrift.' 
Suggestion that insurance might 
aid in helping purchase by instal- 
ment 298 

Proposals passed at the International 
. Congress of Paris at the instance of 

the author . 299 

Do. at the instance of M. Picot . 300 
Summary 300 



Synopsis of Conte?its. 



XIX 



IX. The Evils of State Teadixg as illusteated by 
THE Post Office. 



The multifarious duties assumed by 
the State interfere with its efficient 
performance of any one duty 305 

The Post Office put forward as an 
example of a successful State de- 
partment 305 

The Post Office not originated by the 
State 306 

The Post Office monopoly . . 307 

An instance of its enforcement 308 

Enormous margin of profit on the 
penny post 309 

Extension of Government monopoly 
to other spheres would more than 
double the cost of living in Eng- 
land 309 

Some instances of Post Office ano- 
malies 310 

Doubt as to the possibility of making 
State postal system highly efficient 

311 

The Book-keeping of the Post Office 

311 

The discourtesy of the officials of a 
monopoly 312 

The arbitrary way in which its cus- 
tomers are treated .... 313 

The recent strike 314 

State officials called on to surrender 
their right of combination in ex- 
change for a promise of pensions 
and other advantages . . . 315 

Is the English working-class prepared 
for this surrender ? . . . . 315 

Mrs. Besant represents the Post 
Office as a model 315 

The Sec. of the Union describes the 
service as that of a task-master 



worse than the vilest East End 

sweater 315 

The Parcel Post a financial failure 

3'5 
The Savings Bank, its irritating and 

inconvenient arrangements . 316 
Compared with the National Penny 

Bank 318 

Insurance Department . . . 319 
Infinitesimal business done by the 

Post Office 319 

Telegraphs another financial failure 

319 

The only brancli of business that 
pays is the letter- carrying . 321 

The Postmaster-General's device for 
raising the price of post-cards 321 

The Post Office and the Telephone 

322 

Blackmail of 10 per cent, levied by 
the Post Office on all telephonic 
enterprise 323 

The yearly Christmas break-down 
unworthy of a great and rich cor- 
poration — even in this point mo- 
nopolies are inferior to private 
enterprise 324 

Danger to the public from the com- 
plete cessation of the service fur- 
nished by a monopoly through a 
strike 325 

Conclusion that an impartial ex- 
amination of the Post Office sup- 
plies an answer to those who 
demand municipalisation or na- 
tionalisation of other and more 
important industries . . . 325 



XX 



Synopsis of Contents. 



X. Free Libearies. 



The Free Library the Socialist con- 
tinuation school 329 

The logic of men taught to read at 
public expense asking for material 
to read from the same source 329 

But there is a point at which the 
rates will bear no more . . 329 

The forestalling of individual effort 
inimical to self- discipline. . 330 

Good books not out of the reach of 
the working-class . . . . 331 

The alleged educational value of Free 
Libraries considered . . . 332 

Absurdity of thinking that a supply 
of books is a synonym for educa- 
tion 333 

Free Libraries principally used for 
novel reading — a harmless pursuit, 
but not of sufficient importance to 
be endowed by rates . . . 333 

Statistics in proof of above . . 335 

The rate limited to \d. in the pound 

340 

Various expedients for evading this 
limitation 34° 

Activity of the Library Association 
in pushing the interests of a new 
bureaucracy 34^ 

The class of readers in Free Libraries 
a large proportion 'of no occupa- 
tion.' At Wigan a fuller classifi- 



cation shows a large majority of 
well-to-do people . . . . 343 

Reading not as a rule a working-class 
amusement 344 

If books are supplied by the rates — 
why not theatres, cricket bats, 
bicycles, &c. &c. ? . . . . 344 

Absurdity of term 'Free.' The ac- 
commodation provided only suffi- 
cient for I per cent, of the popula- 
tion. Consequent long delay in 
getting popular novels . . . 346 

Solid works not read, the rules regu- 
lating issue of books really pro- 
hibitive of study 347 

Free Libraries a typical example of 
compulsory co-operation . . . 348 

The majority has learned the lesson 
of tolerance in religious matters 
and forbears to tax the minority 

348 

The lesson has still to be learnt with 
regard to our amusements . 348 

In social and political questions the 
fight for Liberty only beginning 

348 

The tyranny of the few over the 

many past, that of the many over 

the few to come 34S 

A bitter experience in store for us, 
but the result not doubtful . 349 



XI. The State and Electrical Distribution. 



Introductory, sketching the course 
of events up to 1882 ; the Paris 
Electrical Exhibition ; the Play- 
fair Committee ; the private 
(Corporations) Electric Lighting 
Acts ; the Electric Lighting Bills 
of 1 88 2 ; the desirability shown 
of general legislation . 353-5 

The character it should assume ; 
might reasonably be encourag- 



ing ; 
for:- 



should at least provide 



1 . The easy acquisition of statutory 

powers. 

2. Non-injurious regulations for 

supply. 

3. Tenure sufficiently liberal to 

attract investors, &c. . 355-6 

Analysis of the public Bill of 1882, 

showing the spirit in which the 



Synopsis of Co7i tents. 



XXI 



Government approached th.e 
question ; the Select Committee ; 
the form in which the Bill 
issued therefrom . . . 356-8 
The Electric Lighting Act, 1882 ; its 
provisions summarised — 
(a) As affecting local authorities — 
a really facilitating Act 359-60 
(&) As affecting private enterprise, 
with special reference to the 
above-named essentials ; ac- 
quisition of powers, and regu- 
lations of supply, generally 
satisfactory ; conditions of 
tenure restrictive and impos- 
sible 360-2 

Compared with the Tramways Act, 
its precedent ; conditions shown 
to be utterly dissimilar. The 
Act inaugurated a new principle 
in industrial legislation. 362-5 
The amending Bills of 1886. (i) 
Lord Eayleigh's Bill. (2) Lord 
Ashford's Bill. (3) The Govern- 
ment Bill. Their provisions 
summarised. The Lords' Com- 
mittee ; reasons for the failure 
of the previous Act ; the evidence 
of scientific and financial experts 

365-7 
Analysis of the amending Act of 



1888. Tenure extended, though 
the confiscatory provisions re- 
tained ; power of veto given to 
local authorities . . . 367-8 

Effect, so far, of these provisions (a) in 
London, (&) in the provinces ; 
illustrating instances cited 368-9 

The concession last Session (1890) 
of the Corporations Transfer 
clause ; its probable effect con- 
sidered, especially in the hands 
of gas-owning corporations. Sum- 
mary, showing how private en- 
terprise has been discouraged, to 
promote the supply of electricity 
by local authorities . . 369-7 1 

Some reasons given for the belief 
that in their hands the industry 
will not be as efficiently or as 
economically developed as it 
would be by the old form of 
individual enterprise ; the policy 
discussed of using the rates (a) 
in speculative trading, (&) in com- 
petition vnth the private purse, 
as well as of creating a body of 
obstructionists to the utilization 
of any future discovery . 371-4 

The probable effect of such a prece- 
dent on industrial operations 
generally ...... 375 



XII. The True Line of Deliverance. 



New Unionism will do good by re- 
opening the whole question of 
Trade-Unionism .... 379 
Effect of the new Unionism on the 

old Unionism 380 

Aims of new Unionism . 381-2 
The two methods for bettering con- 
dition of labour : — restriction and 
open competition . . . . 383 
Restrictian : — 
The minimum wage ; the left-outside ; 
the restricted entrance . . 384-5 
All wage artificially enhanced is war 
upon other labour .... 385 



The tendency of restriction to spread ; 
its unhealthy forms . . 386-7 
Ignoring personal differences . 388 
Tending towards the completed sys- 
tem of universal restriction . 389 
Is the price worth paying ? . . 390 
How far Trade-Unionism can affect 

wages 390-1 

Open Competition :— 

The true method of raising wages 392 

Faults and mistakes which prevent 

the growth of capital, and the 

bettering of the eondition of labour 

392-3 



XXll 



Synopsis of Contents. 



Comparison of cases of prosperous 
trade, with and without Trade- 
Union interference . . . 394-5 
Frightening away the fish . . 395 
Wages raised by a monopoly in trade 
are a tax upon all other labour 

396 
Mr. Thornton supposed Trade-Union- 
ism could raise wages ; cases ex- 
amined 397-8 

The two meanings of high wages 399 

Perfect competition would assign to 

each the just reward for his work 

4C0 
Perfect competition impossible in old 
days ; how far possible now . 401 
Improving competition . . . 401 
Form which the new Trade-Union 
would take .... 401-2-3-4 
Expansion of capital under a state of 



industrial peace ; capital, instead 
of going abroad, would undertake 
home services for workmen ; trades 
kept in more vigorous condition 

405 

New conditions that favour the work- 
men 496 

Large profit of employer promotes 
interest of workman . . . 407 

With abandonment of industrial war, 
must be abandonment of political 
war, and other forms of monopoly 

408 

Note A. How the workman's share 
increases in value . . . . 410 

Note B. Some employers favour re- 
stricted trades 412 

Note C. The two great ends : — 
Eeform within the Unions ; aban- 
donment of war with capital 41 2 



INTRODUCTION. 
FBOM FIIEED03I TO BONDAGE. 



HERBERT SPENCER. 



INTRODUCTION. 



FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 

OF the many ways in which common sense inferences 
about social affairs are flatly contradicted by events (as 
when measures taken to suppress a book cause increased cir- 
culation of it, or as when attempts to prevent usurious rates 
of interest make the terms harder for the borrower, or as 
when there is greater difficulty in getting things at the places 
of production than elsewhere) one of the most curious is the 
way in which the more things improve the louder become 
the exclamations about their badness. 

In days when the people were without any political power, 
their subjection was rarely complained of; but after free 
institutions had so far advanced in England that our political 
arrangements were envied by continental peoples, the denun- 
ciations of aristocratic rule grew gradually stronger, until 
there came a great widening of the franchise, soon followed 
by complaints that things were going wrong for want of still 
further widening. If we trace up the treatment of women 
from the days of savagedom, when they bore all the burdens 
and after the men had eaten received such food as remained, up 
through the middle ages when they served the men at their 



2 A Plea for Liberty : 

meals, to our own day when throughout our social arrange- 
ments the claims of women are always put first, we see that 
along with the worst treatment there went the least apparent 
consciousness that the treatment was bad ; while now that 
they are better treated than ever before, the proclaiming of 
their grievances daily strengthens : the loudest outcries com- 
ing from ' the paradise of women,' America. A century ago, 
when scarcely a man could be found who was not occasionally 
intoxicated, and when inability to take one or two bottles of 
wine brought contempt, no agitation arose against the vice of 
drunkenness ; but now that, in the course of fifty years, the 
voluntary efibrts of temperance societies, joined with more 
general causes, have produced comparative sobriety, there are 
vociferous demands for laws to prevent the ruinous effects of 
the liquor traffic. Similarly again with education. A few 
generations back, ability to read and write was practically 
limited to the upper and middle classes, and the suggestion 
that the rudiments of culture should be given to labourers 
was never made, or, if made, ridiculed ; but when, in the days 
of our grandfathers, the Sunday-school system, initiated by a 
few philanthropists, began to spread and was followed by the 
establishment of day-schools, with the result that among the 
masses those who could read and write were no longer the 
exceptions, and the demand for cheap literature rapidly 
increased, there began the cry that the people were perishing 
for lack of knowledge, and that the State must not simply 
educate them but must force education upon them. 

And so it is, too, with the general state of the population 
in respect of food, clothing, shelter, and the appliances of 
life. Leaving out of the comparison early barbaric states^ 
there has been a conspicuous progress from the time when most 
rustics lived on barley bread, rye bread, and oatmeal, down 
to our own time when the consumption of white wheaten 
bread is universal — from the days when coarse jackets 



Introduction. 3 

reaching to the knees left the legs bare, down to the 
present day when labouring people, like their employers, 
have the whole body covered, by two or more layers of 
clothing — from the old era of single-roomed huts with- 
out chimneys, or from the 15th century when even an 
ordinary gentleman's house was commonly without wainscot 
or plaster on its walls, down to the present century when 
every cottage has more rooms than one and the houses 
of artizans usually have several, while all have fire-places, 
chimneys, and glazed "vsondows, accompanied mostly by paper- 
hangings and painted doors ; there has been, I say, a con- 
spicuous progress in the condition of the people. And this 
progress has been still more marked within our own time. 
Any one who can look back sixty years, when the amount of 
pauperism was far greater than now and beggars abundant, 
is struck by the comparative size and finish of the new houses 
occupied by operatives — by the better dress of workmen, who 
wear broad-cloth on Sundays, and that of servant gii'ls, who 
vie with their mistresses — by the higher standard of living 
which leads to a great demand for the best qualities of food 
by working people : all results of the double change to higher 
wages and cheaper commodities, and a distribution of taxes 
which has relieved the lower classes at the expense of the upper 
classes. He is struck, too, by the contrast between the small 
space which popular welfare then occupied in public attention, 
and the large space it now occupies, with the result that out- 
side and inside Parliament, plans to benefit the millions form 
the leading topics, and everyone having means is expected to 
join in some philanthropic efibrt. Yet while elevation, mental 
and physical, of the masses is going on far more rapidly than 
ever before — while the lowering of the death-rate proves that 
the average life is less trying, there swells louder and louder 
the cry that the evils are so great that nothing short of a 
social revolution can cure them. In presence of obvious im- 



4 A Plea for Liberty : 

provements, joined with that increase of longevity which 
even alone yields conclusive proof of general amelioration, it 
is proclaimed, with increasing vehemence, that things are so* 
bad that society must be pulled to pieces and re-organized on 
another plan. In this case, then, as in the previous cases 
instanced, in proportion as the evil decreases the denun- 
ciation of it increases ; and as fast as natural causes are 
shown to be powerful there grows up the belief that they 
are powerless. 

Not that the evils to be remedied are small. Let no one 
suppose that, by emphasizing the above paradox,, I wish to 
make light of the sufferings which most men have to bear. 
The fates of the great majority have ever been^ and doubtless 
still are, so sad that it is painful to think of them. Unques- 
tionably the existing type of social organization is one which 
none who care for their kind can contemplate with satisfaction ; 
and unquestionably men's activities accompanying this type 
are far from being admirable. The strong divisions of rank 
and the immense inequalities of means, are at variance with 
that ideal of human relations on which the sympathetic 
imagination likes to dwell ; and the average conduct, under 
the pressure and excitement of social life as at present carried 
on, is in sundry respects repulsive. Though the many who re- 
vile competition strangely ignore the enormous benefits result- 
ing from it — though they forget that most of all the appliances 
and products distinguishing civilization from savagery, and 
making possible the maintenance of a large population on a 
small area, have been developed by the struggle for existence 
— though they disregard the fact that while every man, as 
producer, suffers from the under-bidding of competitors, yet, 
as consumer, he is immensely advantaged by the cheapening 
of all he has to buy — though they persist in dwelling on the 
evils of competition and saying nothing of its benefits ; yet it 
is not to be denied that the evils are great, and form a large 



Intro dttction, 5 

set-off from the benefits. The system under which we at 
present live fosters dishonesty and lying. It prompts adult- 
erations of countless kinds ; it is answerable for the cheap 
imitations which eventually in many cases thrust the genuine 
articles out of the market ; it leads to the use of short weights 
and false measures; it introduces bribery, which vitiates most 
trading relations, from those of the manufacturer and buyer 
down to those of the shopkeeper and servant ; it encourages 
deception to such an extent that an assistant who cannot tell 
a falsehood with a good face is blamed ; and often it gives the 
conscientious trader the choice between adopting the mal- 
practices of his competitors, or greatly injuring his* creditors 
by bankruptcy. Moreover, the extensive frauds, common 
throughout the commercial world and daily exposed in law- 
courts and newspapers, are largely due to the pressure under 
which competition places the higher industrial classes ; and 
are otherwise due to that lavish expenditure which, as 
implying success in the commercial struggle, brings honour. 
With these minor evils must be joined the major one, that the 
distribution achieved by the system, gives to those who 
regulate and superintend, a share of the total produce which 
bears too -large a ratio to the share it gives to the actual 
workers. Let it not be thought, then, that in saying what I 
have said above, I under-estimate those vices of our competi- 
tive system which, thirty years ago, I described and denounced^. 
But it is not a question of absolute evils ; it is a question of 
relative evils — whether the evils at present suffered are or are 
not less than the evils which would be suffered under another 
system — whether efforts for mitigation along the lines thus 
far followed are not more likely to succeed than efforts along 
utterly different lines. 

This is the question here to be considered. I must be 
excused for first of all setting forth sundry truths which are, 
^ See essay on ' The Morals of Trade.' 



6 A Plea for Liberty : 

to some at any rate, tolerably familiar, before proceeding to 
draw inferences which are not so familiar. 



Speaking broadly, every man works that he may avoid 
suffering. Here, remembrance of the pangs of hunger prompts 
him ; and there, he is prompted by the sight of the slave- 
driver's lash. His immediate dread may be the punishment 
which physical circumstances will inflict, or may be punish- 
ment inflicted by human agency. He must have a master ; 
but the master may be Nature or may be a fellow man. 
When he is under the impersonal coercion of Nature, we say 
that he is free ; and when he is under the personal coercion 
of some one above him, we call him, according to the degree 
of his dependence, a slave, a serf^ or a vassal. Of course I 
omit the small minority who inherit means : an incidental, 
and not a necessary, social element. I speak only of the 
vast majority, both cultured and uncultured, who maintain 
themselves by labour, bodily or mental, and must either exert 
themselves of their own unconstrained wills, prompted only 
by thoughts of naturally-resulting evils or benefits, or must 
exert themselves with constrained wills, prompted by thoughts 
of evils and benefits artificially resulting. 

Men may work together in a society under either of these 
two forms of control: forms which, though in many cases 
mingled, are essentially contrasted. Using the word co- 
operation in its wide sense, and not in that restricted sense 
now commonly given to it, we may say that social life must 
be carried on by either voluntary co-operation or compulsory 
co-operation ; or, to use Sir Henry Maine's words, the system 
must be that of contract or that of status- — that in which the 
individual is left to do the best he can by his spontaneous efforts 
and get success or failure according to his efficiency, and that 
in which he has his appointed place, works under coercive rule, 
and has his apportioned share of food, clothing, and shelter. 



Introduction, 7 

The system of voluntary co-operation is that by which, in 
civilized societies, industry is now everywhere carried on. 
Under a simple form we have it on every farm, where the 
labourers, paid by the farmer himself and taking orders 
directly from him, are free to stay or go as they please. 
And of its more complex form an example is yielded by 
every manufacturing concern, in which, under partners, come 
clerks and managers, and under these, time-keepers and over- 
lookers, and under these operatives of different grades. In 
each of these cases there is an obvious working together, or 
co-operation, of employer and employed, to obtain in one 
case a crop and in the other case a manufactured stock. And 
then, at the same time, there is a far more extensive, though 
unconscious, co-operation with other workers of all grades 
throughout the society. For while these particular employers 
and employed are severally occupied with their special kinds 
of work, other employers and employed are making other 
things needed for the carrying on of their lives as well as 
the lives of all others. This voluntary co-operation, from its 
simplest to its most complex forms, has the common trait 
that those concerned work together by consent. There is no 
one to force terms or to force acceptance. It is perfectly 
true that in many cases an employer may give, or an employe 
may accept, with reluctance : circumstances he says compel 
him. But what are the circumstances? In the one case 
there are goods ordered, or a contract entered into, which he 
cannot supply or execute without yielding ; and in the other 
case he submits to a wage less than he likes because other- 
wise he will have no money wherewith to procure food and 
warmth. The general formula is not — 'Do this, or I will 
make you ; ' but it is — ' Do this, or leave your place and take 
the consequences.' 

On the other hand compulsory co-operation is exemplified 
by an army — not so much by our own army, the service in 



8 A Plea for Liberty : 

which is under, agreement for a specified period, but in a conti- 
nental army, raised by conscription. Here, in time of peace 
the daily duties — cleaning, parade, drill, sentry work, and the 
rest — and in time of war the various actions of the camp and 
the battle-field, are done under command, without, room for 
any exercise of choice. Up from the private soldier through 
the non-commissioned officers and the half-dozen or more 
grades of commissioned officers, the universal law is absolute 
obedience from the grade below to the grade above. The 
sphere of individual will is such only as is allowed by the will 
of the superior. Breaches of subordination are, according to 
their gravity, dealt with by deprivation of leave, extra drill, 
imprisonment, flogging, and, in the last resort, shooting. 
Instead of the understanding that there must be obedience in 
respect of specified duties under pain of dismissal ; the under- 
standing now is — ' Obey in everything ordered under penalty 
of inflicted suffering and perhaps death.' 

This form of co-operation, still exemplified in an army, has 
in days gone by been the form of co-operation throughout the 
civil population. Everywhere, and at all times, chronic war 
generates a militant type of structure, not in the body of sol- 
diers only but throughout the community at large. Practi- 
cally, while the conflict between societies is actively going on, 
and fighting is regarded as the only manly occupation, the 
society is the quiescent army and the army the mobilized 
society: that part which does not take part in battle, com- 
posed of slaves, serfs, women, &c., constituting the commis- 
sariat. Naturally, therefore, throughout the mass of inferior 
individuals constituting the commissariat, there is maintained 
a system of discipline identical in nature if less elaborate. 
The fighting body being, under such conditions, the ruling 
body, and the rest of the community being incapable of resist- 
ance, those who control the fighting body will, of course, 
impose their control upon the non-fighting body ; and the 



Introduction. 9 

regime of coercion will be applied to it with such modifica- 
tions only as the different circumstances involve. Prisoners 
of war become slaves. Those who were free cultivators 
before the conquest of their country, become serfs attached 
to the soil. Petty chiefs become subject to superior chiefs ; 
these smaller lords become vassals to over-lords ; and so on up 
to the highest: the social ranks and powers being of like 
essential nature with the ranks and powers throughout the 
military organization. And while for the slaves compulsory 
co-operation is the unqualified system, a co-operation which is 
in part compulsory is the system that pervades all grades 
above. Each man's oath of fealty to . his suzerain takes the 
form — ' I am your man.' 

Throughout Europe, and especially in our own country, 
this system of compulsory co-operation gradually relaxed in 
rigour, while the system of voluntary co-operation step by 
step replaced it. As fast as war ceased to be the business of 
life, the social structure produced by war and appropriate to 
it, slowly became qualified by the social structure produced by 
industrial life and appropriate to it. In proportion as a de- 
creasing part of the community was devoted to offensive and 
defensive activities, an increasing part became devoted to 
production and distribution. Growing more numerous, more 
powerful, and taking refuge in towns where it was less under 
the power of the militant class, this industrial population 
carried on its life under the system of voluntary co-operation. 
Though municipal governments and guild-regulations, partially 
pervaded by ideas and usages derived from the militant type 
of society, were in some degree coercive ; yet production and 
distribution were in the main carried on under agreement — 
alike between buyers and sellers, and between masters and 
workmen. As fast as these social relations and forms of 
activity became dominant in urban populations, they influ- 
enced the whole community : compulsory co-operation lapsed 



lo A Plea for Liberty : 

more and more, through money commutation for services, 
military and civil ; while divisions of rank became less rigid 
and class -power diminished. Until at length, restraints 
exercised by incorporated trades have fallen into desuetude, 
as well as the rule of rank over rank, voluntary co-operation 
became the universal principle. Purchase and sale became 
the law for all kinds of services as well as for all kinds of 
commodities. 

The restlessness generated by pressure against the conditions 
of existence, perpetually prompts the desire to try a new 
position. Everyone knows how long-continued rest in one 
attitude becomes wearisome — everyone has found how even 
the best easy chair, at first rejoiced in, becomes after many 
hours intolerable ; and change to a hard seat, previously 
occupied and rejected, seems for a time to be a great relief. 
It is the same with incorporated humanity. Having by long 
struggles emancipated itself from the hard discipline of the 
ancient regime^ and having discovered that the new regime 
into which it has grown, though relatively easy, is not 
without stresses and pains, its impatience with these prompts 
the wish to try another system ; which other system is, in 
principle if not in appearance, the same as that which during 
past generations was escaped from with much rejoicing. 

For as fast as the regime of contract is discarded the regime 
of status is of necessity adopted. As fast as voluntary co- 
operation is abandoned compulsory co-operation must be 
substituted. Some kind of organization labour must have ; 
and if it is not that which arises by agreement under free 
competition, it must be that which is imposed by authority. 
Unlike in appearance and names as it may be to the old order 
of slaves and serfs, working under masters, who were coerced 
by barons, who were themselves vassals of dukes or kings, the 
new order wished for, constituted by workers under foremen 



Introduction, 1 1 

of small groups, overlooked by superintendents, who are 
subject to higher local managers, who are controlled by 
superiors of districts, themselves under a central government, 
must be essentially the same in principle. In the one case, as 
in the other, there must be established grades, and enforced 
subordination of each grade to the grades above. This is a 
truth which the communist or the socialist does not dwell 
upon. Angry with the existing system under which each of 
us takes care of himself, while all of us see that each has fair 
play, he thinks how much better it would be for all of us to 
take care of each of us ; and he refrains from thinking of the 
machinery by which this is to be done. Inevitably, if each is 
to be cared for by all, then the embodied all must get the 
means — the necessaries of life. What it gives to each must be 
taken from the accumulated contributions ; and it must there- 
fore require from each his proportion — must tell him how 
much he has to give to the general stock in the shape of pro- 
duction, that he may have so much in the shape of sustenta- 
tion. Hence, before he can be provided for, he must put 
himself under orders, and obey those who say what he shall 
do, and at what hours, and where; and who give him his 
share of food, clothing, and shelter. If competition is ex- 
cluded, and with it buying and selling, there can be no 
voluntary exchange of so much labour for so much produce ; 
but there must be apportionment of the one to the other by 
appointed officers. This apportionment must be enforced. 
Without alternative the work must be done, and without 
alternative the benefit, whatever it may be, must be accepted. 
For the worker may not leave his place at will and offer 
himself elsewhere. Under such a system he cannot be ac- 
cepted elsewhere, save by order of the authorities. And it is 
manifest that a standing order would forbid employment in 
one place of an insubordinate member from another place : the 
system could not be worked if the workers were severally 



12 A Plea for Liberty: 

allowed to go or come as they pleased. With corporals and 
sergeants under them, the captains of industry must carry out 
the orders of their colonels, and these of their generals, up to 
the council of the commander-in-chief; and obedience must 
be required throughout the industrial army as throughout a 
fighting army. ' Do your prescribed duties, and take your ap- 
portioned rations/ must be the rule of the one as of the other. 
' Well, be it so ; ' replies the socialist. ' The workers will 
appoint their own officers, and these will always be subject to 
criticisms of the mass they regulate. Being thus in fear of 
public opinion, they will be sure to act judiciously and fairly ; 
or when they do not, will be deposed by the popular vote, 
local or general. W^here will be the grievance of being under 
superiors, when the superiors themselves are under democratic 
control?' And in this attractive vision the socialist has full 
belief. 

Iron and brass are simpler things than flesh and blood, and 
dead wood than living nerve ; and a machine constructed of 
the one works in more definite ways than an organism con- 
structed of the other, — especially when the machine is worked 
by the inorganic forces of steam or water, while the organism 
is worked by the forces of living nerve-centres. Manifestly, 
then, the ways in which the machine will work are much 
more readily calculable than the ways in which the organism 
will work. Yet in how few cases does the inventor foresee 
rightly the actions of his new apparatus ! Read the patent- 
list, and it will be found that not more than one device in 
fifty turns out to be of any service. Plausible as his scheme 
seemed to the inventor, one or other hitch prevents the in- 
tended operation, and brings out a widely different result from 
that which he wished. 

What, then, shall we say of these schemes which have to do 
not with dead matters and forces, but with complex living 



Introduction. 1 3 

organisms working in ways less readily foreseen, and which 
involve the co-operation of multitudes of such organisms? 
Even the units out of which this re-arranged body politic is 
to be formed are often incomprehensible. Everyone is from 
time to time surprised by others' behaviour, and even by the 
deeds of relatives who are best known to him. Seeing, then, 
how uncertainly anyone can foresee the actions of an in- 
dividual, how can he with any certainty foresee the operation 
of a social structure? He proceeds on the assumption 
that all concerned will judge rightly and act fairly — will 
think as they ought to think, and act as they ought to act ; 
and he assumes this regardless of the daily experiences 
which show him that men do neither the one nor the other, 
and forgetting that the complaints he makes against the 
existing system show his belief to be that men have neither 
the wisdom nor the rectitude which his plan requires them 
to have. 

Paper constitutions raise smiles on the faces of those who 
have observed their results ; and paper social systems similarly 
affect those who have contemplated the available evidence. 
How little the men who wrought the French revolution .and 
were chiefly concerned in setting up the new governmental 
apparatus, dreamt that one of the early actions of this apparatus 
would be to behead them all ! How little the men who drew 
up the American Declaration of Independence and framed the 
Republic, anticipated that after some generations the legislature 
would lapse into the hands of wire-pullers ; that its doings 
would turn upon the contests of office-seekers ; that political 
action would be everywhere vitiated by the intrusion of a 
foreign element holding the balance between parties ; that 
electors, instead of judging for themselves, would habitually 
be led to the polls in thousands by their ' bosses ' ; and that 
respectable men would be driven out of public life by the 
insults and slanders of professional politicians. Nor were 



14 A Plea for Liberty : 

there better previsions in those who gave constitutions to the 
various other states of the New World, in which unnumbered 
revolutions have shown with wonderful persistence the con-* 
trasts between the expected results of political systems and 
the achieved results. It has been no less thus with proposed 
systems of social re-organization, so far as they have been tried. 
Save where celibacy has been insisted on, their history has 
been everjnvhere one of disaster ; ending with the history of 
Cabet's Icarian colony lately given by one of its members, 
Madame Fleury Robinson, in The Ojpen Court — a history 
of splittings, re-splittings, re-re-splittings, accompanied by 
numerous individual secessions and final dissolution. And 
for the failure of such social schemes, as for the failure of the 
political schemes, there has been one general cause. 

Metamorphosis is the universal law, exemplified throughout 
the Heavens and on the Earth : especially throughout the 
organic world ; and above all in the animal division of it. 
No creature, save the simplest and most minute, commences 
its existence in a form like .that which it eventually assumes ; 
and in most cases the unlikeness is great — so great that 
kinship between the first and the last forms would be in- 
credible were it not daily demonstrated in every poultry-yard 
and every garden. More than this is true. The changes of 
form are often several: each of them being an apparently 
complete transformation — Qgg^ larva, pupa, imago, for example. 
And this universal metamorphosis, displayed alike in the 
development of a planet and of every seed which germinates 
on its surface, holds also of societies, whether taken as wholes 
or in their separate institutions. No one of them ends as it 
begins ; and the difference between its original structure and 
its ultimate structure is such that, at the outset, change of the 
one into the other would have seemed incredible. In the 
rudest tribe the chief, obeyed as leader in war, loses his 



Introduction, 1 5 

distinctive position when the fighting is over; and even 
where continued warfare has produced permanent chieftain- 
ship, the chief, building his own hut, getting his own food, 
making his own implements, difiers from others only by his 
predominant influence. There is no sign that in course of 
time, by conquests and unions of tribes, and consolidations of 
clusters so formed with other such clusters, until a nation has 
been produced, there will originate from the primitive chief, 
one who, as czar or emperor, surrounded with pomp and 
ceremony, has despotic power over scores of millions, exercised 
through hundreds of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of 
thousands of officials. When the early Christian missionaries, 
having humble externals and passing self-denying lives, 
spread over pagan Europe, preaching forgiveness of injuries 
and the returning of good for evil, no one dreamt that in 
course of time their representatives would form a vast 
hierarchy, possessing everywhere a large part of the land, 
distinguished by the haughtiness of its members grade above 
grade, ruled by military bishops who led their retainers to 
battle, and headed by a pope exercising supreme power over 
kings. So, too, has it been vdth that very industrial system 
which many are now so eager to replace. In its original form 
there was no prophecy of the factory system or kindred 
organizations of workers. Difiering from them only as being 
the head of his house, the master worked along with his 
apprentices and a journeyman or two, sharing with them his 
table and accommodation, and himself selling their joint 
produce. Only with industrial growth did there come employ- 
ment of a larger number of assistants and a relinquishment, 
on the part of the master, of all other business than that of 
superintendence. And only in the course of recent times did 
there evolve the organizations under which the labours of 
hundreds and thousands of men receiving wages, are regulated 
by various orders of paid officials under a single or multiple 



1 6 A Plea for Liberty : 

head. These originally small, semi-socialistic, groups of pro- 
ducers, like the compound families or house-communities of 
early ages, slowly dissolved because they could not hold their 
ground : the larger establishments, with better sub-division of 
labour, succeeded because they ministered to the wants of 
society more effectually. But we need not go back through 
the centuries to trace transformations sufficiently great and 
unexpected. On the day when .3^30,000 a year in aid of 
education was voted as an experiment, the name of idiot 
would have been given to an opponent who prophesied that 
in fifty years the sum spent through imperial taxes and local 
rates would amount to <^i 0,000,000, or who said that the aid to 
education would be followed by aids to feeding and clothing, 
or who said that parents and children, alike deprived of all 
option, would, even if starving, be compelled by fine or 
imprisonment to conform, and receive that which, with papal 
assumption, the State calls education. No one, I say, would 
have dreamt that out of so innocent-looking a germ would 
have so quickly evolved this tyrannical system, tamely sub- 
mitted to by people who fancy themselves free. 

Thus in social arrangements, as in all other things, change 
is inevitable. It is foolish to suppose that new institutions 
set up, will long retain the character given them by those 
who set them up. Kapidly or slowly they will be transformed 
into institutions unlike those intended — so unlike as even to 
be unrecognizable by their devisers. And what, in the case 
before us, will be the metamorphosis ? The answer pointed to 
by instances above given, and warranted by various analogies, 
is manifest. 

A cardinal trait in all advancing organization is the develop- 
ment of the regulative apparatus. If the parts of a whole are 
to act together, there must be appliances by which their 
actions are directed ; and in proportion as the whole is large 
and complex, and has many requirements to be met by many 



Introduction, 1 7 

agencies, the dii-ective apparatus must be extensive^ elaborate, 
and powerful. That it is thus with individual organisms 
needs no saying ; and that it must be thus with social 
organisms is obvious. Beyond the regulative apparatus such 
as in our own society is required for carrying on national 
defence and maintaining public order and personal safety, 
there must, under the regime of socialism, be a regulative 
apparatus everywhere controlling all kinds of production and 
distribution, and everywhere apportioning the shares of 
products of each kind required for each locality, each working 
establishment, each individual. Under our existing voluntary 
co-operation, with its free contracts and its competition, pro- 
duction and distribution need no official oversight. Demand 
and supply, and the desire of each man to gain a living by 
supplying the needs of his fellows, spontaneously evolve that 
wonderful system whereby a great city has its food daily 
brought round to all doors or stored at adjacent shops ; has 
clothing for its citizens everywhere at hand in multitudinous 
varieties ; has its houses and furniture and fuel ready made 
or stocked in each locality; and has mental pabulum from 
halfpenny papers, hourly hawked round, to weekly shoals of 
novels, and less abundant books of instruction, furnished 
without stint for small payments. And throughout the 
kingdom, production as well as distribution is similarly 
carried on with the smallest amount of superintendence 
which proves efficient ; while the quantities of the numerous 
commodities required daily in each locality are adjusted with- 
out any other agency than the pursuit of profit. Suppose 
now that this industrial regime of willinghood, acting spon- 
taneously, is replaced by a regime of industrial obedience, 
enforced by public officials. Imagine the vast administration 
required for that distribution of all commodities to all people 
in every city, town and village, which is now efiected by 
traders ! Imagine, again, the still more vast administration 



1 8 A Plea for Liberty : 

required for doing all that farmers, manufacturers, and 
merchants do ; having not only its various orders of local 
superintendents, but its sub-centres and chief centres needed 
for apportioning the quantities of each thing everyvsrhere 
needed, and the adjustment of them to the requisite times. 
Then add the staffs wanted for working mines, railways, 
roads, canals ; the staffs required for conducting the importing 
and exporting businesses and the administration of mercantile 
shipping ; the staffs required for supplying towns not only with 
water and gas but with locomotion by tramways, omnibuses, 
and other vehicles, and for the distribution of power, electric 
and other. Join with these the existing postal, telegraphic, 
and telephonic administrations ; and finally those of the 
police and army, by which the dictates of this immense 
consolidated regulative system are to be everywhere enforced. 
Imagine all this and then ask what will be the position of the 
actual workers ! Already on the continent, where governmental 
organizations are more elaborate and coercive than here, there 
are chronic complaints of the tyranny of bureaucracies — the 
hauteur and brutality of their members. What will these 
become when not only the more public actions of . citizens are 
controlled, but there is added this far more extensive control 
of all their respective daily duties ? What will happen when 
the various divisions of this vast army of officials, united 
by interests common to officialism — the interests of the 
regulators versus those of the regulated — have at their 
command whatever force is needful to suppress insubordina- 
tion and act as * saviours of society?' Where will be the 
actual diggers and miners and smelters and weavers, when 
those who order and superintend, everywhere arranged class 
above class, have come, after some generations, to inter-maiTy 
with those of kindred grades, under feelings such as are 
operative in existing classes ; and when there have been so 
produced a series of castes rising in superiority ; and when all 



Introduction. 19 

these, having everything in their own power, have arranged 
modes of living for their own advantage : eventually forming 
a new aristocracy far more elaborate and better organized 
than the old ? How will the individual worker fare if he is 
dissatisfied with his treatment — thinks that he has not an 
adequate share of the products, or has more to do than can 
rightly be demanded, or wishes to undertake a function for 
which he feels himself fitted but which is not thought proper 
for him by his superiors, or desires to make an independent 
career for himself? This dissatisfied unit in the immense 
machine will be told he must submit or go. The mildest 
penalty for disobedience will be industrial excommunication. 
And if an international organization of labour is formed 
as proposed, exclusion in one country will mean exclusion 
in all others— industrial excommunication will mean star- 
vation. 

That things must take this course is a conclusion reached not 
by deduction only, nor only by induction from those experiences 
of the past instanced above, nor only from consideration of 
the analogies furnished by organisms of all orders ; but it is 
reached also by observation of cases daily under our eyes. 
The truth that the regulative structure always tends to 
increase in power, is illustrated by every established body of 
men. The history of each learned society, or society for other 
purpose, shows how the staff, permanent or partially permanent, 
sways the proceedings and determines the actions of the 
society with but little resistance, even when most members 
of the society disapprove : the repugnance to anything like 
a revolutionary step being ordinarily an efficient deterrent. So 
is it with joint-stock companies — those owning railways for 
example. The plans of a board of directors are usually 
authorized with little or no discussion ; and if there is any 
considerable opposition, this is forthwith crushed by an over- 
whelming number of proxies sent by those who always support 



20 A Plea for Liberty : 

the existing administration. Only when the misconduct is 
extreme does the resistance of shareholders suffice to displace 
the ruling body. Nor is it otherwise with societies formed 
of working men and having the interests of labour especially 
at heart — the Trades Unions. In these, too, the regulative 
agency becomes all powerful. Their members, even when 
they dissent from the policy pursued, habitually yield to the 
authorities they have set up. As they cannot secede without 
making enemies of their fellow workmen, and often losing 
all chance of employment, they succumb. We are shown, too, 
by the late congress, that already, in the general organization 
of Trades Unions so recently formed, there are complaints of 
' wire-pullers ' and ' bosses ' and ' permanent officials.* If, then, 
this supremacy of the regulators is seen in bodies of quite 
modern origin, formed of men who have, in many of the 
cases instanced, unhindered powers of asserting their in- 
dependence, what will the supremacy of the regulators 
become in long-established bodies, in bodies which have 
grown vast and highly organized, and in bodies which, 
instead of controlling only a small part of the unit's life, 
control the whole of his life ? 

Again there will come the rejoinder— 'We shall guard 
against all that. Everybody will be educated ; and all, with 
their eyes constantly open to the abuse of power, will be 
quick to prevent it.' The worth of these expectations would 
be small even could we not identify the causes which will 
bring disappointment ; for in human affairs the most promis- 
ing schemes go wrong in ways which no one anticipated. 
But in this case the going wrong will be necessitated by 
causes which are conspicuous. The working of institutions 
is determined by men's characters ; and the existing defects 
in their characters will inevitably bring about the results 
above indicated. There is no adequate endowment of those 



Introduction, 2 1 

sentiments required to prevent the growth of a despotic 
bureaucracy. 

Were it needful to dwell on indirect evidence, much might 
be made of that furnished by the behaviour of the so-called 
Liberal party — a party which, relinquishing the original con- 
ception of a leader as a mouthpiece for a known and accepted 
policy, thinks itself bound to accept a policy which its leader 
springs upon it without consent or warning — a party so 
utterly without the feeling and idea implied by liberalism, as 
not to resent this trampling on the right of private judgment 
which constitutes the root of liberalism — nay, a party which 
vilifies as renegade liberals, those of its members who refuse 
to surrender their independence! But without occupying 
space with indirect proofs that the mass of men have not the 
natures required to check the development of tyrannical 
officialism, it will suffice to contemplate the direct proofs 
furnished by those classes among whom the socialistic idea 
most predominates, and who think themselves most interested 
in propagating it — the operative classes. These would consti- 
tute the great body of the socialistic organization, and their 
characters would determine its nature. What, then, are their 
characters as displayed in such organizations as they have 
already formed? 

Instead of the selfishness of the employing classes and the 
selfishness of competition, we are to have the unselfishness of 
a mutually-aiding system. How far is this unselfishness now 
shown in the behaviour of working men to one another? 
What shall we say to the rules limiting the numbers of new 
hands admitted into each trade, or to the rules which hinder 
ascent from inferior classes of workers to superior classes ? 
One does not see in such regulations any of that altruism by 
which socialism is to be pervaded. Contrariwise, one sees a 
pursuit of private interests no less keen than among traders. 
Hence, unless we suppose that men's natures will be suddenly 



22 A Plea for Liberty: 

exalted, we must conclude that the pursuit of private interests 
will sway the doings of all the component classes in a social- 
istic society. 

With passive disregard of others' claims goes active en- 
croachment on them. ' Be one of us or we will cut off your 
means of living,' is the usual threat of each Trades Union to 
outsiders of the same trade. While their members insist on 
their own freedom to combine and fix the rates at which they 
will work (as they are perfectly justified in doing), the free- 
dom of those who disagree with them is not only denied but 
the assertion of it is treated as a crime. Individuals who 
maintain their rights to make their own contracts are vilified 
as ' blacklegs ' and ' traitors,' and meet with violence which 
would be merciless were there no legal penalties a-nd no 
police. Along with this trampling on the liberties of men of 
their own class, there goes peremptory dictation to the em- 
ploying class : not prescribed terms and working arrange- 
ments only shall be conformed to, but none save those 
belonging to their body shall be employed — nay, in some 
cases, there shall be a strike if the employer carries on 
transactions with trading bodies that give work to non-union 
men. Here, then, we are variously shown by Trades Unions, 
or at any rate by the newer Trades Unions, a determination 
to impose their regulations without regard to the rights of 
those who are to be coerced. So complete is the inversion 
of ideas and sentiments that maintenance of these rights is 
regarded as vicious and trespass upon them as virtuous ^. 

^ Marvellous are the conclusions the right to have labour provided ; 

men reach when once they desert the and there are still not a few who 

simple principle, that each man think the community bound to find 

should be allowed to pursue the work for each person. Compare this 

objects of life, restrained only by the with the doctrine current in France 

limits which the similar pursuits of at the time when the monarchical 

their objects by other men impose. power culminated ; namely, that 'the 

A generation ago we heard loud asser- right of working is a royal right 

tions of ' the right to labour,' that is, which the prince can sell and the 



Introduction, 23 

Along with this aggressiveness in one direction there goes 
submissiveness in another direction. The coercion of outsiders 
by unionists is paralleled only by their subjection to their 
leaders. That they may conquer in the struggle they sur- 
render their individual liberties and individual judgments, 
and show no resentment however dictatorial may be the rule 
exercised over them. Everywhere we see such subordination 
that bodies of workmen unanimously leave their work or 
return to it as their authorities order them. Nor do they 
resist when taxed all round to support strikers whose acts 
they may or may not approve, but instead, ill-treat recalcitrant 
members of their body who do not subscribe. 

The traits thus shown must be operative in any new social 
organization, and the question to be asked is — What will result 
from their operation when they are reheved from all restraints % 
At present the separate bodies of men displaying them are in 
the midst of a society partially passive, partially antagonistic ; 
are subject to the criticisms and reprobations of an indepen- 
dent press ; and are under the control of law, enforced by 
police. If in these circumstances these bodies habitually 
take courses which override individual freedom, what will 
happen when, instead of being only scattered parts of the 
community, governed by their separate sets of regulators, they 
constitute the whole community, governed by a consolidated 
system of such regulators ; when functionaries of all orders, 
including those who officer the press, form parts of the regu- 
lative organization ; and when the law is both enacted and 
administered by this regulative organization ? The fanatical 

subjects must buy.' This contrast is each artisan has to pay prescribed 

startling enough ; but a contrast still monies to one or another of them, 

more startling is being provided for with the alternative of being a non- 

us. We now see a resuscitation of unionist to whom work is denied by 

the despotic doctrine, differing only force, it has come to this, that the 

by the substitution of Trades Unions right to labour is a Trade Union right, 

for kings. For now that Trades which the Trade Union can sell and 

Unions are becoming universal, and the individual worker mu^t buy ! 



24 A Plea for Liberty : 

adherents of a social theory are capable of taking any mea- 
sures, no matter how extreme, for carrying out their views : 
holding, like the merciless priesthoods of past times, that the' 
end justifies the means. And when a general socialistic organ- 
ization has been established, the vast, ramified, and consoli- 
dated body of those who direct its activities, using without 
check whatever coercion seems to them needful in the interests 
of the system (which will practically become their own in- 
terests) will have no hesitation in imposing their rigorous rule 
over the entire lives of the actual workers ; until, eventually, 
there is developed an official oligarchy, with its various 
grades, exercising a tyranny more gigantic and more terrible 
than any which the world has seen. 

Let me again repudiate an erroneous inference. Any one 
who supposes that the foregoing argument implies content- 
ment with things as they are, makes a profound mistake. 
The present social state is transitional, as past social states 
have been transitional. There will, I hope and believe, come 
a future social state differing as much from the present as the 
present differs from the past with its mailed barons and 
defenceless serfs. In Social Statics, as well as in The Study 
of Sociology and in Political Institutions, is clearly shown the 
desire for an organization more conducive to the happiness of 
men at large than that which exists. My opposition to social- 
ism results from the belief that it would stop the progress 
to such a higher state and bring back a lower state. Nothing 
but the slow modification of human nature by the discipline 
of social life, can produce permanently advantageous changes. 

A fundamental error pervading the thinking of nearly all 
parties, political and social, is that evils admit of immediate 
and radical remedies. ' If you will but do this, the mischief 
will be prevented.' 'Adopt my plan and the suffering will 
disappear.' ' The corruption will unquestionably be cured by 



Introduction, 2 5 

enforcing this measure.' Everywhere one meets with beliefs, 
expressed or implied, of these kinds. They are all ill-founded. 
It is possible to remove causes which intensify the evils ; it 
is possible to change the evils from one form into another; 
and it is possible, and very common, to exacerbate the evils 
by the efforts made to prevent them ; but anything like 
immediate cure is impossible. In the course of thousands of 
years mankind have, by multiplication, been forced out of 
that original savage state in which small numbers supported 
themselves on wild food, into the civilized state in which the 
food required for supporting great numbers can be got only 
by continuous labour. The nature required for this last mode 
of life is widely different from the nature required for the 
first ; and long-continued pains have to be passed through in 
re-moulding the one into the other. Misery has necessarily to 
be borne by a constitution out of harmony with its conditions ; 
and a constitution inherited from primitive men is out of 
harmony with the conditions imposed on existing men. 
Hence it is impossible to establish forthwith a satisfactory 
social state. No such nature as that which has filled Europe 
with millions of armed men, here eager for conquest and there 
for revenge — no such nature as that which prompts the nations 
called Christian to vie with one another in filibustering expe- 
ditions all over the world, regardless of the claims of abori- 
gines, while their tens of thousands of priests of the religion 
of love look on approvingly — no such nature as that which, 
in dealing with weaker races, goes beyond the primitive 
rule of life for life, and for one life takes many lives — no 
such nature, I say, can, by any device, be framed into a 
harmonious community. The root of all well-ordered social 
action is a sentiment of justice, which at once insists on per- 
sonal freedom and is solicitous for the like freedom of others ; 
and there at present exists but a very inadequate amount 
of this sentiment. 

4: 



26 A Plea for Liberty. 

Hence the need for further long continuance of a social 
discipline which requires each man to carry on his activities 
with due regard to the like claims of others to carry on their 
activities ; and which, while it insists that he shall have all 
the benefits his conduct naturally brings, insists also that he 
shall not saddle on others the evils his conduct naturally 
brings : unless they freely undertake to bear them. And 
hence the belief that endeavours to elude this discipline,, will 
not only fail, but will bring worse evils than those to be 
escaped. 

It is not, then^ chiefly in the interests of the employing 
classes that socialism is to be resisted, but much more in the 
interests of the employed classes. In one way or other 
production must be regulated ; and the regulators, in the 
nature of things, must always be a small class as compared 
with the actual producers. Under voluntary co-operation 
as at present carried on, the regulators, pursuing their personal 
interests, take as large a share of the produce as they can 
get ; but, as we are daily shown by Trades Union successes, 
are restrained in the selfish pursuit of their ends. Under that 
compulsory co-operation which socialism would necessitate, 
the regulators, pursuing their personal interests with no less 
selfishness, could not be met by the combined resistance of 
free workers ; and their power, unchecked as now by refusals 
to work save on prescribed terms, would grow and ramify 
and consolidate till it became irresistible. The ultimate 
result, as I have before pointed out, must be a society like 
that of ancient Peru, dreadful to contemplate, in which the 
mass of the people, elaborately regimented in groups of lo, 
50, 100, 500, and 1000, ruled by officers of corresponding 
grades, and tied to their districts, were superintended in their 
private lives as well as in theii* industries, and toiled hope- 
lessly for the support of the governmental organization. 



I. 

THE IMPBACTICABILITT 
OF SOCIALISM. 



EDWARD STANLEY BOBERTSON. 



I. 

THE IMPBACTIC ABILITY OF SOCIALISM. 

I PURPOSE, in this paper, to deal almost exclusively with 
the question whether Socialism is practicable. I shall 
confine myself, as much as I can, to the inquiry whether 
the means proposed are, or are not. likely to work out the 
end which is aimed at. I shall have to waive, in a very 
great degree, the previous essential questions whether the 
end is a desirable one in itself, and whether justice requii-es 
that it shall be held in view. For the purposes of the dis- 
cussion I shall provisionally concede the afiirmative to both ; 
but in order to avoid all misunderstanding, I think it well 
to put on record here that I do so provisionally only. No 
such admission is hereafter to be quoted against me, as if 
I had accepted Socialist or CoUectivist theories upon any 
moral, economical, or political question. Space does not 
admit of my making a detailed confession of faith upon these 
points ; but it is open to me to state that I am not bound by 
any d priori theory. What is commonly called 'abstract 
justice' I confess I cannot discover in the history of any 
human institution. I cannot discover equality in the dis- 
pensations of nature itself. 

This, I may be told;, proves nothing. A great deal of our 
life consists of a conflict with nature ; a continuous effoi-t 
to redress inequalities in the course of nature, and to solve 
difficult problems which nature sets before us. True ; and 
that is precisely part of my case. I affirm that social inequal- 
ities are inequalities which may be mitigated, but cannot be 
redressed wholly ; that social problems are problems which, 
for the most part, only admit of a partial solution. 



30 A Plea for Liberty. [i. 

Such problems and such inequalities exist in material 
nature, and the difficulties they present are universally acknow- 
ledged. The day, in the tropics, is of about equal length * 
with the night. So it is at the poles, with the difference that 
the tropical day and night are about twelve hours each, while 
at the poles each lasts somewhere about half the year. In 
the sub-tropical and temperate zones, the days in summer 
and in winter differ strikingly in length. In the latitude of 
London, the longest day is about a quarter of an hour shorter, 
and the shortest day about a quarter of an hour longer, than 
in the latitude of Edinburgh. Such is the inequality in a 
merely astronomical and geographical statement of fact ; and 
when it comes to be applied to human affairs, its practical 
effect is more startling still. It means that a working day, 
if it were not for artificial light, may be twice as long in 
summer as in winter, and may vary in length for the differ- 
ence in latitude between Southampton and Carlisle, and 
between Carlisle and Inverness. This difference in the length 
of the day does make a real difference in all the conditions 
of life, and most of all in the lives of what are usually called 
the working classes ; but the difference is obscured by custom, 
and by the feeling that it cannot be helped. It is felt to be 
useless to agitate against 'the stars in their courses.' So 
again, in India and in many parts of the tropics the principal 
danger to agriculture is drought ; in the British Islands the 
danger is excessive rainfall If rain and sunshine could be 
distributed in exact proportion to the wants of each region, 
a far greater degree of prosperity would result. As it is, in 
the one class of countries it is necessary to have recourse to 
irrigation, and in the other to drainage, to correct, so far as 
is practicable, the inequalities of climate. One result of this 
is that the remedies not unfrequently turn out to contain the 
seeds of other diseases. In a drainage country, an unusually 
dry summer brings on a drought for which there is no prepara- 
tion, and which may even be attended by pestilence. In a 
country of irrigation, an exceptional rainfall causes floods, 
which may destroy life both directly and indirectly. And 
even in ordinary seasons, there are difficulties and losses 



I,] The Impracticability of Socialism. 31 

which are great hardships to individuals and classes, but 
which there is no way of obviating. All these things, and 
many others that could be added to the list, are accepted as 
part of the course of nature ^. Nobody thinks of agitating 
against the weather, though we all grumble at it freely. We 
know that there is no help for it, and there is an end of the 
matter. Now the human race, and human society, are just as 
much parts of nature as the heavenly bodies and the sunshine 
and rainfall. The organisation of society is just as much a 
matter of natural tendency (I purposely avoid the use of 
the phrase natural law) as the rising and setting of the sun, 
the rain in Devonshire or the hot wind of the Punjab. The 
difference is a difference of simple and complex phenomena. 
Every one can observe for himself or herself the discrepancy 
in the length of the days. It is not so easy to understand 
fully the dissimilarities of climate and their influence upon 
human affairs, but once the facts are grasped, there is no 
longer any room for speculation as to the possibility of things 
being otherwise. It is perceived at once that there is no use 
in attempting to fly in the face of nature. We can mitigate^ 
but we cannot change. We can only mitigate, moreover, by 
playing off one tendency or set of tendencies against others. 
It is by obeying nature that we get the mastery of nature. 

Now this brings us to the points at issue between Socialists 
and their opponents. Socialists would (I suppose) not deny 
that the human race and human society are part of nature. 
They would not deny that human communities are what they 
are, and have been what they have been, in virtue of streams 
of tendency, more difficult to observe and to co-ordinate than 
the observed antecedents and sequences of climatic tendencies, 

^ I will briefly refer to one other human stiffering is inflicted, e. g. by- 
instance — I mean the influence of malarious fever in Africa or by lung 
climate upon bodily condition. The disease in our own islands. Volumes 
human race can exist in almost any have been written on nature's adapt- 
climate ; but there is no climate in ation of means to ends ; but I venture 
which the average human being can to think that volumes remain to be 
enjoy perfect health. Every region written on the imperfection of that 
suffers from diseases peculiar to itself, adaptation, 
and it may be doubted whether more 



32 A Plea for Liberty, [i. 

but not less real, and not less certain to work themselves out. 
If we only knew history as we know astronomy, sociology 
would be an exact science. If we even knew history as we 
know, or guess at, meteorology, many problems would be clear 
which are now obscure. 

But although Socialists might not deny all this in terms, 
they seem habitually to think, and speak, and try to act and 
induce others to act, as if it were all untrue. They deal with 
human society as if it were that blank sheet of paper to which 
Locke incorrectly compared the childish intellect. They 
write and speak as if they thought that it only needed a 
conscious effort of the will on the part of any given human 
community to change all, or nearly all, the conditions in which 
it has hitherto subsisted. They seem to think that they can 
defeat nature by a front attack. 

What, then, are the complaints of Socialists against the 
existing constitution of society, and how is it proposed to 
redress the alleged grievances % 

In endeavouring to answer these questions, I take as 
my text-book Dr. Schaffle's Quintessence of Socialism ^ ; the 
most businesslike account of the Socialist position which has 
yet appeared. Anyone who compares its cahn and judicial 
statements with the violent, turgid, and heated rhetoric of the 
Fabian Essays will appreciate the reasons which guided me in 
choosing it ^. I may go so far as to say that if Dr. Schaffle's 
style were a little more popular, the substance of his work 
would render the writing of this paper a superfluous effort. 
He evidently sympathises with Socialism, and is resolved to 
make the best case he can for its proposals. Yet every page 
displays the difficulties of the scheme to the intelligent reader, 
even when the author is not dwelling upon those difficulties. 

* Eighth edition, translated by calm and temperate statements of 

Bernard Bosanquet, M.A. Swan Son- Socialist projects, such as we find in 

nenschein & Co. 1889. When I Schaffle, with the wild rhodomontade 

quote other authorities I shall specify of the Fabian Society, to say nothing 

them, but most quotations will be of the still wilder oratory of Hyde 

from Schaffle. Park meetings, it is not so much 

^ Socialism is very commonly called More's Utopia of which one is re- 
Utopian. But when one compares minded, as Swift's Lapuia. 



I.] The Impracticability of Socialism, 33 

In his concluding chapter he sums up calmly and judicially, 
but very strongly, against the whole system of Democratic or 
Collective Socialism. 

What then is the Socialist complaint against the existing 
constitution of society ? It may be summed up in the one 
word, Inequality. Quoting from Karl Marx, Schaffle speaks 
of ' a growing mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, 
exploitation-^.' Schaffle himself speaks of 'the plutocratic 
process of dividing the nation into an enormous proletariat on 
the one side and a few millionaires on the other ^.' If any 
one wants to bo saturated with boiling rhetoric on this topic, 
let him open the Fabian Essays at random, or dip into the 
pages of Henry George's Progress and Poverty and Social 
Problems ^. Or, if the reader is in search of quite as good 
rhetoric, but tempered by a good deal more common sense, 
let him carefully read through The Social Problem, by Pro- 
fessor William Graham ^, especially chapter vi, ' The Social 
Besiduum.' Mr. Graham does not hold that what he calls 
the social residuum is an increasing mass. The Fabian essay- 
ists and the Continental Socialists always affirm that it is, 
and Dr. Schaffle in the quotation already given appears to 
accept Marx's view. 

Now this view is an untrue one. It is demonstrably untrue 
as regards the United Kingdom. It is demonstrably untrue 
as regards France. It is probably untrue of every other country 
in Europe, with the possible exception of Russia. Confining 
ourselves to the United Kingdom, I affirm that there exists, 
between the so-called ' millionaire ' and the class described as 
the residuum, no gulf whatever, but an absolutely complete 
gradation. I need not load these pages with statistics in proof 
of what I say. The burden of proof is upon those who affirm 
the contrary. Socialist rhetoricians have no scruple in con- 
fusing their own and other people's ideas on this subject by 
their illogical use of the word ' proletariat.' At one time, it 

^ P. 15. But on the subject of the proletariat 

^ P. 12. he writes as if he was one. 

2 I am bound to admit that Mr. * Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 1886. 

George says he is not a Socialist. 



34 A P^^(^ for Liberty, [i. 

means people who have no land ; at another, it seems to 
signify people who have no capital ; in all cases it is used 
with a kind of tacit connotation of ' pauper.' We shall see ' 
presently that in a Socialist State the entire population would 
be one vast proletariat ; but in the meantime it may be 
pointed out that to have no land and no capital is not neces- 
sarily to be a pauper. A professional man may be earning a 
very handsome and very secure income, and yet may, in that 
sense, belong to the proletariat. But Socialist declamation 
about millionaires and proletariat invariably covers the in- 
nuendo that the world actually contains a few thousand 
millionaires and thousands of millions of paupers. When 
this is stated, it is at once perceived to be untrue ; and a very 
little inquiry confirms the inquirer in that conclusion. So- 
cialist declamation, such as Schaffle quotes from Marx — 
'misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation' — is 
only true, if true at all, of the lowest residuum ; and that 
residuum is no more than a fringe on the border of society, in 
any country where the capitalist is free. On the other hand, 
this is true beyond all controversy of England and of France 
— that between the millionaire and the worker for daily or 
weekly wage there are stages innumerable, which pass from 
higher to lower by a gradation that is barely perceptible. If 
there is anything that can be called a social gulf, it is the 
interval which separates the steady and fairly well-paid 
workers from the loafers and the criminals ; and that gulf is 
quite as much moral as it is economic. 

But even if all that is alleged were true, does Socialism 
offer anything that can be called a remedy % In order to 
answer this question, we must see what the Socialist 
remedy is. 

' The Alpha and Omega of Socialism is the transformation 
of private and competing capitals into a united collective 
capital ^.' ' When, instead of the system of private and com- 
peting capitals, which drive down wages by competition, we 
have a collective ownership of capital, public organisation of 
labour, and of the distribution of the national income — then, 

1 Schaffle, p. 20. 



/ 



I.] The Impracticability of Socialism, 35 

and not till then, we shall have no capitalists and no wage- 
earners, but all will be alike, producers ^.' 

One more quotation. ' In their places ' (i. e. in place of private 
capital and competition) ' we should have a State-regulated ^ :. i 
organisation of national labour into a social labour system, r 
equipped out of collective capital ; the State would collect, 
warehouse, and transport all products, and finally would dis- 
tribute them to individuals in proportion to their registered 
amount of social labour, and according to a valuation of 
commodities exactly corresponding to their average cost of 
production ^.' 

This, then, is the Quintessence of Socialism. This, and 
nothing more or less, is what is meant by the word, and is 
proposed by its advocates. Socialism does not mean that 
property is robbery, at least in the ordinary sense of the 
phrase ^. Nor does it mean a periodical redistribution of 
private property *. Nor does it mean that private capital is 
to be confiscated, and no compensation made to owners, 
though it does mean that all such compensation must take the 
form of consumable goods, and must therefore be terminable ^. 
Nor does Socialism, as understood by Dr. Schaffle, necessarily 
conflict with individual freedom. Upon this point, however, 
our author speaks but doubtfully, and his remarks require 
very careful perusal ^. It does not even preclude the possession 
of a private income '^. It has nothing to say to questions of 
marriage, ' free love ^,' or religion ^. In short. Socialism, or 
Collectivism, relates to the possession of land and capital — 
the totality of instruments of production ^O— and not to 
anything else whatsoever, whether economic, political, or 
social. 

Now, the first and most obvious criticism upon all this 
is, that whereas Socialists denounce land- owning and capital- 

^ Schaffle, p. 28 and following. The ^ Ibid. ch. iii. pp. 39-45 inclu- 
"whole passage will repay perusal, but sive. 

it is too long to quote in extenso. ^ Ibid. ch. viii, pp. 97-110. 

2 Ibid. p. 45. 8 i\)it^^ pp^ 1 10^ i;u^ 

^ Ibid. p. 23. 9 Ibid. p. 116. 

* Ibid. p. 30. w Ibid. p. 5. 

5 Ibid. pp. 32, 33. 



36 A Plea for Liberty, [i. 

owning, because they tend to the creation of a proletariat,, 
their scheme, as announced by a benevolently-neutral inter- 
preter, proposes to turn all the world into one vast proletariat.- 
This is not mere juggling with words. It is the Socialists who 
juggle with words, when they define a proletarian as a person 
who does not own either land or capital, and then proceed to 
talk of the proletariat as if the word meant ' a mass of 
paupers.' If to be a proletarian is to be a pauper, then 
Socialism undertakes to turn all the world into a mass of 
paupers, including the very persons who will be entrusted 
with the control of that monster workhouse, the Socialist 
State. But I am willing to admit that if all the world could 
be freed from the curse of poverty — ^if the social residuum 
could be done away with — there would be a strong temptation 
to swallow the scheme of Socialism, proletariat and all. Quit- 
ting verbal criticism, let us try to think out how the suggestion 
would be likely to work. Land and Capital are to be the 
property of the whole community. They are to be managed 
by State officials. The produce is to be distributed in pro- 
portion to what is described as the ' social labour-time ' of 
every individual worker ; and this social labour-time is to be 
divided into units of approximately equal value. In other 
words, every Socialist community is to be one vast Joint Stock 
Company for the manufacture and distribution of things in 
general ! Now, the moment this is stated, the first difficulty 
of Socialism is at once suggested. How do the directors of 
an ordinary manufacturing firm ascertain the conditions of 
their business ? By a series of experiments, failure in which 
means the loss of their capital. How does Socialism solve 
the problem 1 ' The amount of supply necessary in each form 
of production would be fixed by continuous official returns 
furnished by the managers and overseers of the selling and 
producing departments ^.' This is very well upon paper, and 
if we accept the hypothesis that the demand for any given object 
always remains nearly constant. But this is evidently not 
the case. There is no article of consumption, not even bread 
itself, for which the demand does not so vary from day to day 

^ Schaffle, p. 5. 



I.] The Impracticability of Socialism, 37 

that no official department could possibly provide for it in a 
* budget of social production.' The existing order of things 
only provides such a ' budget ' very roughly ; and the bank- 
ruptcy court acts as a sort of steam-governor, when mistaken 
speculation sends a capitalist to waste. Even if it were admitted 
that the demand for food is virtually constant, which is mani- 
festly untrue, there are many other things for which the demand 
could not be foreseen by any official department. Clothing 
is a very obvious case in point. It is a necessary of life, in 
a great part of the world, only second to food itself. Yet 
could any public department undertake to say how many 
suits of clothes a given population will wear out in a given 
season ? Eemember, it is of no use making calculations based 
upon decades, or even upon single years, and then striking 
averages. What is wanted is to know how many suits of 
clothes the department ought to have on hand, in order to 
meet the demand day by day. When clothing has to be 
served out to soldiers, the soldiers are put under strict regula- 
tion as to its use. It is all the same pattern, and there is no 
personal choice about it. This is what makes the clothing of 
an army practicable ; but in civil life the conditions are 
wholly different. When did women ever submit to a uniform, 
unless it were for religious reasons % I am prepared to be 
denounced, by Fabian essayists and other enthusiasts, as a 
cold-blooded and frivolous person, because I state such petty 
difficulties ; but I affirm that it is very often trifles such as 
this which cause great projects to make shipwreck. A few 
ounces of iron in the wrong place in a ship will derange the 
compass and baffle the calculations of the most skilful 
navigator. 

I do not know whether I am justified in surmising that the 
more extreme advocates of State Collectivism would cut this 
particular knot by decreeing that people should wear uniform 
of some sort, and should be under quasi-military regulations 
in respect of the raiment served out to them. We may come 
to perceive, as we go on, that there is no real reason why this 
should not be done. The principles of collective production, 
and of distribution according to ' social labour-time,' involve 



38 A Plea for Liberty, [i. 

infringements of personal freedom considerably more formid- 
able than the compulsion to wear a uniform. It may suffice 
to say for the present that if Socialism does not cover this 
contingency, then collective production breaks down over the 
article of clothing. And, of course, to break down in one point 
is to break down in all. A chain is no stronger than its 
weakest link. 

One of the most remarkable characteristics of Dr. Schaffle's 
work is the odd way in which he seems to ignore all particu- 
lars such as I have just now been calling attention to. After 
dwelling, as he does in chap, iii of the (Quintessence^ upon the 
vital importance of freedom of demand, which he declares to 
be a first essential of freedom in general, and the very material 
basis of freedom, he goes on to say that a complete and offici- 
ally organised system of collective production could undoubtedly 
include at least as thorough a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, 
or yearly statistical registration of the free wants of individuals 
and families, as under the present system these effect each for 
themselves, by their demand upon the market ^. But this is 
just what I deny, and I think I have given good reason for 
my denial. An instance, such as that of the clothing question, 
is worth all the a priori assumptions that any one can make. 
The Socialist is bound to explain how he is going to organise 
his collection and registration of statistics in every single 
department of his State-controlled producing-agency. It will 
be noted that Schaffle declares Socialists not to contemplate 
an immediate conversion of all kinds of business into State 
departments ^. But manifestly, until all capital is transformed 
into collective ownership, Socialism is incomplete. If the 
State took over the supply of food, but left clothing to private 
enterprise, all the vices now charged against private capitalism 
would continue to inhere in the clothing trade, until it too had 
been reduced into collective ownership. 

I now, pass to another branch of the Socialist scheme ; 
premising that the question just treated and that upon which 
I am now about to enter are so inextricably mixed up that I 
may have to recur now and then to topics which may seem to 

1 Schaffle, p. 43. 2 ^ai^. p. 48. 



I,] The Impracticability of Socialism, 39 

have been already discussed. And I may add another word 
of caution. If I seem to be almost exclusively answering Dr. 
Schaffle, it is simply because he is the most temperate as well 
as the clearest exponent of Socialism. If Socialism as ex- 
pounded by him can be shown to be unworkable, much more 
will it be proved unworkable in the hands of its most extreme 
projectors. 

To resume then. The Socialist State is not only to produce 
by means of land and capital owned in common and managed 
by public officials ; it is also to distribute the wealth pro- 
duced by this social co-operation according to the proportion 
of work performed by each individual ^. Now here is one of 
the crucial difficulties of the entire Socialist scheme. It is not 
proposed to reward everybody alike. That would be a 
practical proposal, though not a very practicable one, because 
it would put an end at once and for ever to aU spontaneity in 
the workers. But this is not what is contemplated. An 
attempt is to be made to equate the values of ' social labour- 
time ' in different occupations, whether branches of production 
or services not directly productive. How this is to be done 
we are not very clearly told. It is intimated, indeed, that 
Marx has estimated the ' labour price ' of a hectolitre of wheat 
at five days of ' socially determined labour,' supposing every- 
body to work eight hours a day ^. One very striking feature 
of the scheme is that there are to be no payments in metalhc 
money or in any equivalent for coin. We shall see presently 
that this introduces a new and enhanced difficulty ; but it is 
declared to be an essential portion of the scheme, though there 
is nothing even in the nature of Socialism itself to make it so. 
Payments, under Socialism, however, are to be made wholly in 
certificates of labour-time. Now it is abundantly manifest 
that no such equation of labour-time could be constructed as 
to bring out a unit of labour which should be even approxi- 
mately uniform. In the first place, it is totally impossible, as 
has been already shown, to fix the demand for almost any 
given article of production at a given time. The most that 
can be done is, in things for which the demand is in some 

1 Schaffle, p. 5. 2 ji^j^^ pp^ 82, 83. 



40 A Plea for Liberty, [i. 

measure constant, such as food, to produce a daily average ; 
and the production of such daily average may or may not 
require an average expenditure of labour. Indeed, in the case 
of agricultural labour, no average day could be fixed at all. 
But it would seem that Socialists think they can establish 
some such average, not for a single department of production, 
but for the whole of what they call social labour. 'If we 
imagined ^ ' — this is how Schaffle puts it — ' all the species of 
products which are being continually produced, valued by the 
expenditure of social labour as verified by experience, we could 
find by addition the total of social labour-time which is 
required for the social total production of the social total of 
demand.' It is difiicult to strip this statement of its verbiage, 
but it seems to come to this ; that it would be possible some- 
how to find out how many hours a day for how many 
days in a year every working member of a given com- 
munity would have to work, in order that every man, 
woman, and child in such community should have exactly 
as much of everything as he, she, or it wanted, or perhaps 
more correctly, as the heads of the supply departments thought 
that he, she, or it ought to want. In order to achieve this 
it would be necessary to know the demand, which I have 
shown to be impracticable, in some departments at all 
events. It would be necessary to know what is the average 
number of hours' labour needed to produce a given quantity 
of a given commodity. Will anyone, I care not how skilled 
in agriculture, tell us how many days, of how many hours per 
day, it takes to produce a ton of wheat, or potatoes, or hay, 
or beans % How many hours per day of ' social labour ' will 
prepare a bullock or a sheep for the market, or a milch cow to 
yield her daily supply of milk % Here, again, to ask these 
questions is to show that they are unanswerable. The fact is 
that Socialists invariably think oi factory labour, when they 
are speculating about labour time. The labour spent in 
handling machinery can be timed ; but there are other kinds 
of labour which cannot. How many hours a day ought a 
sailor to work, for example ; and how is the value of an hour 
1 Schaffle, pp. 82, 83. 



I.] The Impracticability of Socialism, 41 

of his work to be ascertained in comparison with the value of 
an hour's work of a street lamplighter, or a letter-carrier ? 

Take another concrete example. How would Socialism 
regulate the hours, or estimate the value, of domestic service ? 
I do not mean merely the menial service of the rich — what 
Socialists call 'house slavery^.' The Socialist notion of 
domestic service, indeed, is as unpractical as the whole 
of the rest of their Laputa. I suppose they would class the 
services of a midwife under ' free professional services.' But 
what of the services of a nursemaid % How many hours a day 
ought such a person to be employed, and what is the value of 
her services, expressed in ' social labour-time ? ' What is the 
value of the ' social labour- time ' of a working man's wife in 
childbirth, and during her subsequent withdrawal from the 
working strength of the community ? Schaffle says ^ ^ the 
employment of women's labour, inow no longer needed in the 
family, would find its fitting place without efibrt."* This 
appears to me the strangest of all the strange utterances of 
Socialism. No longer needed in the family ! If for ' family ' 
we read ' factory ' there would be some sense in it, and perhaps, 
after all, the words may have been accidentally transposed. 
For my own part, I confess myself incapable of conceiving a 
state of things in which woman would not be absolutely essen- 
tial to the ' family ' as wife, mother, nurse, housekeeper, to say 
nothing of any other function. I can easily enough conceive 
the existence of factories without women workers ; but that 
women should be set free from the family in order that they 
may enter the factory strikes me as being a complete inver- 
sion of the order of nature. 

The question whether ' house slavery,' in the sense of purely 
menial service, could be abolished by Socialism, seems to de- 
pend upon considerations which cannot be discussed in this 
essay. It belongs to the topic of Classes under Socialism, a 
topic upon which Socialist literature afibrds the minimum of 
information. I pass on now to more general considerations 
on the valuation of labour. 

The fallacy of Sociahsm in relation to labour appears to lie 

1 Schaffle, p. 112. ^ P. 113. 

5 



42 A Plea for Liberty, [i. 

in the assumption that labour has a value of its own, in and 
for itself. It has no such value. No material thing is valu- 
able because of the labour expended in producing it. No 
service is valuable because of the labour expended in rendering 
it. Material things are valuable because they satisfy wants, 
and therefore people will give material things which they 
possess in exchange for things they do not possess. If 
material things came into existence without labour, nobody 
would talk of the value of productive labour. If a thing is 
not wanted, there is no value attached to the labour of pro- 
ducing it. Who now would pay for the labour of producing 
candle-snufFers ? The things have ceased to be useful ; there 
is no demand for them ; but it requires just as much labour to 
produce them now as it did a hundred years ago. But if any 
one possesses a useful article, he can always exchange it for 
another useful article, no matter whether one or both have 
been produced by labour or without labour. And what is 
true of productive labour is true of the labour expended in 
rendering services, when the necessary allowances are made. 
Services may be bartered for material objects of utility, or for 
other services. But in either case what is paid for is the ser- 
vice, not the labour expended in rendering the service ; and 
when the service is rewarded with a material object, the ser- 
vice is rendered for the sake of getting that object, and not for 
the sake of the labour whereby the object was produced. 
Socialists would not, I think, deny all this in terms. Schaffle 
shows that he is acquainted with the truth, and admits it on 
the Socialist behalf, when he says that it is ' socially deter- 
mined individual labour,' not actual labour expended by indi- 
viduals, which is to be taken into account in estimating 
labour values ^. But although the doctrine I have laid down 
might not be disputed in terms, it is consistently ignored in 
the entire Socialist scheme. The entire theory of surplus- 
value rests upon the assumption that labour employed in pro- 
duction has a sort of standard value of its own. The idea of 
regulating exchange by labour-time rests upon a similar 
fallacious assumption. Commodities are exchanged for other 

1 Schaffle, p. 82. 



I.] The Impracticability of Socialism, 43 

commodities because some people have what other people 
want, quite irrespective of how they got it. Commodities are 
exchanged for services, because he who can spare the com- 
modity stands in need of the service, and vice versd ; not 
because it required labour to produce the commodity, and 
will require labour to render the service. 

In reply to all this I shall doubtless be reminded that 
although labour may have no intrinsic value, it has an insepar- 
able value, because no commodity can be produced, nor can any 
service be rendered, without calling labour into requisition. 
That is quite true, but it does not affect the argument. The 
scheme of Socialism requires that some sort of equation should 
be established, whereby goods, and services, should be mutually 
interchangeable, and should possess values capable of being 
estimated in terms of labour. Under Capitalist Individualism, 
and under free Capitalism in general, commodities and services 
are first of all valued in terms of money, and then paid for in 
money which can be used to pay for other commodities and 
other services at the discretion of the recipient. In this way, 
a balance is estabhshed automatically. There is no need to 
construct elaborate calculations for the purpose of valuing one 
kind of labour in terms of another, or of establishing a 
common denominator for the value of all kinds of labour. 
The abolition of money is not necessarily part of the scheme 
of Collective Production. It is 'tacked on' to Collective Pro- 
duction because Socialists have taken up the idea that money 
is conducive to free Capitalism, as it undoubtedly is. But 
money could perfectly well co-exist with Collective Production, 
and that plan is not made in the least degree more practicable 
by being linked with a very clumsy form of inconvertible 
paper currency. The Socialists themselves admit that their 
State would want money, in so far as it had dealings with 
other States which had not yet adopted Socialism ^. But 
even here there is a very important omission. It does not 
follow that even if all the world were to adopt Socialism, 
every State and every community would adopt it on precisely 
the same terms. For instance, one State may fix its labour 

1 Schaffle, p. 70. 



44 A P^^<^ for Liberty, [i. 

day at ten hours, another at eight, another at six. Under 
such circumstances, how are social labour values to be com- 
puted and equated ? Schaffle may well ask ^ ' whether the 
commonwealth of the Socialists would be able to cope with 
the enormous Socialistic book-keeping, and to estimate hetero- 
geneous labour correctly according to Socialistic units of 
labour-time.' It may here be noticed that Schaffle all through 
speaks of the Socialist State as a ' close ' economic community. 
To me this appears to imply, among other things, a protec- 
tionist community. It is not expressly laid down, I am aware, 
by the Socialists, that favour ought to be shown to home 
labour as against the labour of foreigners; but this does 
appear to follow from the general scheme. The entire basis 
of Socialist criticism on existing institutions is the assumption 
that labour does not get its due. It is not complained that 
production falls short, but only that the things produced are 
' unjustly ' distributed ; and the ' injustice ' is declared to lie in 
the fact that the surplus value of labour is appropriated by 
capitalists. Labour is assumed to have a value in and for 
itself. These things being so, I can well understand how the 
labourers in a Socialistic State might be induced to demand 
that nothing should be imported into the ' close community ' 
from without which could possibly be produced within. Nay, 
I can conceive a veto being put upon labour-saving inventions, 
in order that ' the bread might not be taken out of the mouths 
of the people.' The attack upon invention invariably pro- 
ceeds from labour, or from persons posing as champions of 
labour, and as invariably takes the form of accusing capi- 
talists of using inventions in order to secure an unfair advan- 
tage over labour. Some Socialists, indeed, such as the 
Fabian essayists, attack not only patents but literary copy- 
right as the creation of a vicious capitalist and individualist 
system. One would have thought that if there was a moral 
basis for private property anywhere, it would underlie that 
form of property which is described as * property in ideas.' 
That an inventor should enjoy the profits of his invention — an 
artist, of his picture or statue — a musician, of his music — an 

»P. 86. 



I.] The Impracticabiilty of Socialism, 45 

author, of his literary ideas — all this seems almost self-evident, 
when we consider that these men have actually created the 
invention, the artistic work, the composition, and the litera- 
ture. In their case, if anywhere, labour seems to have value 
in and for itself, and the fruit of labour to belong of right to 
its producer. Yet these are just the cases which the thought- 
ful Socialist ignores, and the rhetorical Socialist actually 
assails ^. Under these circumstances, it would be futile to ask 
how the system of Collective Production and payment by 
social labour-time would equate the labour of an inventor 
with that of a ploughman, or the labour of a poet with that of 
a weaver. Still, one may suppose that mechanical invention 
at any rate would not be absolutely excluded. I will not ask 
what would have been the 'social labour value' of James 
Watt's time when he sat watching the lid of his mother's tea- 
kettle being lifted off by the steam. But it is fair to ask what 
Boulton would have done if, instead of being a private capit- 
alist, he had been a Socialist industrial chief, when Watt 
proposed to him to make experiments on the condensing 
steam-engine. Would he have had resources at his disposal ? 
It is very doubtful. If he were paid his salary as overseer in 
labour-certificates, we may say certainly not. Would he have 
felt justified in taking up the ' social labour- time ' of the 
workmen under his supervision in making experiments of a 
costly nature, which, for all he could possibly foresee, might 
come to nothing ? 

And this raises another question. What machinery does 
Socialism provide for ' writing off' obsolete investments ? 
Would a Socialist State ever have adopted the railway as its 
carrying machinery, and if so, how would it have disposed of 
the collective capital invested in canals and stage-coaches ? 

But we need not have recourse to any conjectures or hypo- 
thetical cases. There are instances in abundance. I will 
mention one, which fortunately refers to a matter concerning 
which there need be no dispute as to either principle or 
method. No Individualist will deny that the maintenance of 
lighthouses is one of the proper functions of Government. 

^ Fabian Essays, pp. 145, 146. 



46 A Plea for Liberty. |_i. 

Every Socialist would, I think, earnestly maintain that 
Government is bound to adopt every improvement which can 
be shown to increase the efficiency of lighthouses, and is 
bound also to investigate and test every alleged improvement, 
in favour of which a reasonable prima facie case can be made 
out. What has been the actual conduct of our own Board of 
Trade and Trinity House in regard to the improvement of 
lighthouse illuminants? I have before me a Blue Book of 
143 pages, containing correspondence on the subject of the 
proposed supersession of oil by gas as a lighthouse illuminant ^. 
On the part of the Board of Trade and Trinity House, the 
entire correspondence is one prolonged effort to evade and 
shelve the discussion. Towards the end ^ we read : ' The 
Board of Trade were not without hope that a limit might now 
be reached in which the whole of the lighthouse authorities 
could agree, as being the limit of illumination beyond which 
no practical advantage could result to navigation.' Well 
may Professor Tyndall remark upon this ^, ' The writer of this 
paragraph is obviously disappointed at finding himself unable 
to say to scientific invention, " Thus far shalt thou go and no 
farther." It would, however, be easier to reach the limit of 
illumination in the official mind than to ^^ the limit possible 
to our lighthouses.' This is the way in which the officials of 
our own day deal with a practical problem which is undoubtedly 
within their province ; concerning which they are undoubtedly 
bound to seek for the most efficient appliances ; and upon 
which they have the evidence of a man of science of the very first 
rank. The reason is not far to seek. Functionaries are under 
a chronic temptation to keep on standing upon old paths. 
They habitually defend the machinery and the methods to 
which they have got accustomed, and treat with coolness all 
proposals of reform or improvement. As I have already 
suggested, it seems very doubtful whether Socialist institu- 
tions could, possibly admit of a Department for the Investi- 
gation of Inventions. To draw a hard and fast rule according 

^ Parliamentary Papers, Lighthouse Illuminants, 27 Jan. 1887. 
^ Letter No. iii, page 139 of Eeport. 
' Letter to Times, 7th April, 1888. 



I.] The Impracticability of Socialism, 47 

to which all labour should be rewarded by a share in the 
actual product of other labour would be to negative every 
attempt at even mechanical improvement. As to art and 
literature, the position seems to need no comment. Ex- 
perience teaches us that everything new in art and literature 
requires, so to speak, to create its own market for itself. 
Under Socialism, nothing could secure a market which could 
not be put upon the market at once — for which, as it may be 
said, there was not a demand ah-eady, even before the process 
of production should have begun. 

And this leads to a further consideration. Is a State depart- 
ment really a good machine for either production or distribution ? 
The experience of State departments under existing conditions 
seems to answer this question in the negative. The depart- 
ments of shipbuilding, of ordnance, of soldiers^ clothing, and 
many others, seem to be open to the charge of inefficiency, at 
least as compared with private establishments for producing 
similar objects. It is remarkable that the producing depart- 
ments are never referred to in this connexion by exponents of 
Socialism. The defence of the efficiency of State departments 
is always made to rest upon the distributing agencies, and 
chief among these is the Post Office. Schaffle mentions also 
the State railway, which we have not in England, the tele- 
graph, and the municipal gas and water supplies ^. Now the 
efficiency of the Post Office may be ungrudgingly admitted ; 
but it must not be urged as proving more than it will bear. 

In the first place, the Post Office has always been a 
monopoly. There never was a time when any private agency 
was permitted to compete with the State in the work of 
distributing letters. There has therefore been no opportunity 
of comparing State work in that department with private 
work. In the second place, the work of distributing letters 
is, after all, comparatively simple. We are accustomed, it is 
true, to hear and read of feats of great ingenuity in discover- 
ing obscure addresses ; but these are the exceptions. It is in 
the department of letter-carry iug, at all events, that the 
principal successes — it might almost be said the only suc- 

^ Schaffle, p. 53. 



48 A Plea for Liberty, [i. 

cesses — have been achieved. The telegraphic department is 
not a success either financially or administratively. The 
letter department largely supplements the cost of the tele- 
graph department. In other words, people who write many 
letters, but send few telegrams, are made to pay for the 
accommodation afforded to the senders of many telegrams. 
Even in the letter-carrying department, there is plenty of 
room for improvement. It is very well managed, on the 
whole, in country places ; but in London, and in large towns 
generally, the delivery of letters within the town leaves much 
to be desired. In this connexion I cannot refrain from notic- 
ing the breakdown of letter-delivery arrangements which has 
taken place at Christmas every year since the Christmas card 
came into fashion. The breakdown under the weight of 
exceptional complimentary correspondence is not even of our 
own day ; for Charles Lamb, in his essay on Valentine's Day, 
writes of ' the weary and all-for-spent twopenny postman.' 
But, of course, in the vast proportions of the Christmas crush, 
it is necessarily modern, and the creation of the penny and 
halfpenny postage. One would think that if, by the mere 
fact of belonging to a department of Government, a preter- 
natural faculty of dealing with statistics were conferred upon 
officials, the officials of the Post Office ought, after a brief 
experience, to have been able to foresee and provide for this 
recurring difficulty. Yet no sooner does Christmas come 
within measurable distance, than every Post Office is placarded 
and every newspaper filled, with plaintive appeals from the 
Postmaster-General to the Christmas -card despatching public, 
to ' post early, so as to ensure the punctual delivery of letters ! ' 
It is worth noting, too, that the Post Office is not, strictly 
speaking, a working man's institution. It is the upper and 
middle classes who keep it going. The working class, or what 
is commonly so called, sends few letters and no telegrams. K 
what are usually called ' working ' men and women corre- 
sponded by letter to anything like the extent to which corre- 
spondence is carried on by the commercial class alone, the 
revenue of the Post Office would be greatly enlarged. On the 
other hand, it is difficult to conceive how the telegraph 



I.] The Impracticability of Socialism, 49 

system could possibly be administered, if that ever became a 
really popular institution. As it is, letters pay for telegrams, 
as already stated. 
• The arrangement whereby the surplus of receipts for letters 
is made to pay for the deficit in telegrams is the really 
Socialistic feature of the working of the Post Office. It may 
or may not be an advantage that the people who use the 
telegraph should do so at the expense of the larger public 
who write letters, but this proves nothing at all as to the 
probable success of the working of more complicated insti- 
tutions by State machinery. As already pointed out, the 
delivery of letters is about as simple a work as any organisa- 
tion could undertake, and next to it in simplicity is the trans- 
mission and delivery of telegrams. Nor should we omit to 
note to how great an extent the task of letter-delivery has 
been facilitated by railways and steam communication. It 
would be safe to say that but for these aids the penny post 
would at best have barely paid its way, if indeed it had not 
proved a total failure. Briefly it may be said that the success 
of the Post Office, such as it is, depends upon the circum- 
stances which assimilate it to a private undertaking, and 
which at the same time cause it to difier from other Govern- 
mental institutions. 

But it is not altogether fair to blame Governmental institu- 
tions, merely as such, for the shortcomings which they 
undoubtedly exhibit. The truth is that they share these 
shortcomings with all institutions in which industrial opera- 
tions are conducted upon a large scale. Every large joint 
stock company, and especially every company whose business 
is of the nature of a monopoly, displays tendencies which are, 
after all, only carried out to an extreme in Government 
monopolies and in Government manufacturing establishments. 
Every great railway company is apt to be slow at adopting 
improvements and new or untried methods of business. That 
is because, in the first place, every such undertaking is upon 
a very large scale, and requires the co-operation of a great 
many heads and hands. Things must be done very much by 
fixed rule. There is less scope for personal initiative than in 



50 A Plea for Liberty. [i. 

smaller and more elastic businesses. But in addition, the 
business is more or less of a monopoly. The public must use 
the railway in question, or go without the carrying facilities 
of which it stands in need. The only check upon the arbi- 
trary power of the directors and other officials is the necessity 
of finding a dividend for the shareholders, and that check 
once taken away there is nothing to hinder the management 
from becoming despotic. Where there is less monopoly, the 
management is under greater inducements to strive after 
making the business popular. But it is not until we come to 
individual enterprise, where the merchant or shopkeeper or 
other head of the establishment is brought into direct per- 
sonal relation with his customers, that the conduct of business 
becomes really elastic and automatic. It is because their per- 
sonal gain or loss is not directly dependent upon the working of 
the institution that Government officials are less efficient than 
those of joint-stock companies, and the latter than those of 
private firms ; these last themselves being inferior to the 
partners or proprietors, when they are brought into personal 
relations with the customers of the house. 

I may be told that this is all speculation. As a matter of 
fact, I may be reminded, small traders are even more behind- 
hand than any big monopoly. If it were not so, how is it 
that so many private businesses are now being turned into 
joint-stock companies'? My reply is that in all these cases 
the business began with private enterprise, and that not until 
private enterprise had pretty fully done its work did it 
become practicable to apply the joint-stock principle. I would 
add that this very principle is itself on its trial just now, and 
that it is premature to pronounce any judgment until we 
shall have had much larger experience. The analogous prin- 
ciple of co-operation would seem to be working fairly well as 
regards distribution, but not so well in production. We must 
remember also that the possession of large capital confers 
upon joint stock enterprises an advantage which in some 
measure counterbalances, though it does not wholly neutralise, 
the special advantages attaching to private management. Nor 
should it be forgotten that this capital itself has been accu- 



I.] The Impracticability of Socialism. 51 

mulated under private enterprise. The private businesses 
turned into limited companies are survivals ; those that fall 
behind in the race are the failures of individualism, and no 
one affirms that individualism makes no failures. I for my 
part am disposed to think that the circumstances which 
cause large joint-stock companies to resemble Government 
undertakings are drawbacks and not advantages. It appears 
to me that if railways could compete as onanibuses do, they 
would perform the carrying work of the country as cheaply 
and as efficiently as, on the whole, the omnibus services of 
London and other great cities perform the services which they 
render. Owing to exceptional circumstances, railway com- 
panies have to place themselves under State patronage, and 
therefore to submit to State control ; and in so far as this is 
the case, it detracts from their efficiency. Owing, moreover, 
to the scale on which work has to be carried on, these large 
enterprises are all more or less tainted with the vice of 
departmentalism. To use a colloquial phrase, they are tied 
up with red tape. The terrible railway accident in June, 1889, 
in the north of Ireland, was largely due to the want of a 
proper system of brakes, and this want was itself due to 
slovenly management and a blind trust in old methods. 
There are plenty of railways still unprovided with fit ap- 
pliances, despite Board of Trade inspection. I know of one 
line in the vicinity of a great seaport, two of whose suburban 
stations have no telegraph wire between them, and the rail- 
road consists of a single line running along the face of a crag 
overhanging the sea. A postal telegraph line passes both 
stations, and a very trifling expenditure would connect it 
with both, but the directors ' do not see their way ! ' 

I need not go on multiplying instances. The burden of 
proof lies upon those who assert that departmentalised manage- 
ment is superior to private enterprise. Their crucial instance, 
the Post Office, breaks down when it is tested. I think I 
have shown sufficient cause for my belief that private enter- 
prise does not gain, but loses, by assimilation to State 
departmentalism. I may however be pardoned if I refer 
briefly to contemporary events. The strikes of policemen 



52 A Plea for Liberty, [i. 

and postmen (June and July, 1890) seem to prove that a 
Government department is not necessarily more successful 
than a private firm or a joint-stock company in securing the 
contentment of the people who are in its employ. 

On the whole, it seems that we should be warranted in 
drawing the conclusion that State departments are neither 
good producers, good distributors, nor good employers of 
labour, as compared with private producers, distributors, and 
employers. 

I now come to a part of my task which I approach with 
some reluctance. There are certain social and economic 
matters which it is impossible to discuss without running 
a risk of offending certain perfectly legitimate susceptibilities, 
yet which must be discussed if a judgment of any value is 
to be formed on the social problem. I have elsewhere 
pointed out that the CoUectivist community is always spoken 
of as a ' closed economic unit.* It is not easy to discover in 
the works of Schaffie or of any other exponent of Socialism 
whether they contemplate the exclusion of imported labour. 
If they do not, it only remains to be said that they are not 
honestly facing the consequences of their own system. If a 
collective production and distribution of wealth is to be 
carried on at all, it must be on the condition that the pro- 
ducers know exactly how much to produce, and that the 
distributors know exactly how much, and to whom, to dis- 
tribute. This, as I have already shown, is a task beyond 
human power, even if the fluctuation of numbers could be to 
some extent foreseen. But we know that the fluctuation 
can by no means be foreseen, and we know the reason why. 
I have endeavoured to lead up to my main question by re- 
ferring in the first instance to the importation of foreign 
labour ; but that in reality is only a very minor matter. In 
spite of the silence of Schaffle and other recognised exponents 
of the system, I suspect that no thoroughgoing Socialist would 
shrink from prohibiting foreign immigration. But there is 
an immigration which goes on day after day — an immigration 
of mouths to be fed, without, for the time being, hands to 
labour for food. Every child that is born is for years a 



I.] The Impracticability of Socialism, 53 

helpless being, dependent upon others for its support, and 
incapable of rendering anything in return. Nay, more, every 
child renders its mother incapable of contributing to the 
support of the community for weeks, if not for months ^. The 
disablement of the mother may be considered a matter of no 
very great consequence, but it is certainly a serious matter 
to the community to be compelled to maintain an entirely 
unproductive consumer for a period of some fourteen years. 
It may fairly be taken for granted that a Socialist community 
would not exact less in the way of education than is demanded 
by the community as at present existing. The present school 
age does not end until thirteen. We may be pretty sure that 
under Sociahsm the period would not be shorter, and might 
be longer. Even this is not all. The young person of thir- 
teen or fourteen would then have to be provided with a 
vocation. How far any liberty of choice would or could be 
left is a difficult question, but fortunately it does not require 
a detailed answer. The liberty of choice must under any 
circumstances be limited by the number of vocations open to 
the candidate ; and we may safely assume that this number 
would itself depend upon the judgment of the collective 
authorities. So, then, these authorities would have not only 
to provide for all the mothers who from time to time bore 
children, and for all the children from birth till about fourteen 
years old, but also to find employment for all the boys and 
girls who lived to the age of fourteen. Nor is even that all. 
They would be bound, in offering employment to each can- 
didate, to hold out some reasonable expectation that such 
employment should be a provision for hfe. At present, under 
the ordinary regime of individualism and competition, the 
father of a family is as a general rule responsible for the 
careers of his children. The children themselves have some 
kind of a voice in choosing a trade or a profession. If a 
mistake is made, the consequences may, no doubt, be very 

^ I am here speaking of civilised but Socialism contemplates a state of 

communities. I am quite aware that civilisation not inferior to what now 

savage women are fit to work in a prevails, with, it may be presumed, 

very short time after child-bearing ; a civilised and not a savage physique. 



54 -^ P^^^ for Liberty, [i. 

disastrous ; but as a rule, he who commits the error suffers 
the consequences. Every now and then it happens that a 
particular vocation is, so to speak, superseded and rendered 
obsolete. Still more often it happens that a candidate for 
employment adopts the wrong vocation, or that work drifts 
away to other quarters, so that although the employment 
itself may be prosperous enough, particular workers or classes 
of workers are thrown out. Under individualism, there takes 
place a survival of the fittest, which may be very cruel to 
individuals and to classes. One of the aims of collective 
production and distribution is to eliminate this survival, with 
its attendant cruelty. Can it be done ? 

We have seen that the more sober exponents of Socialism 
declare that there is no intention of interfering with family 
life. Even the extreme fanatics avoid the question, and 
seem to assume that it may somehow or other be expected to 
solve itself. But there are indications, underlying all the 
more outspoken utterances on the subject, that attempts 
would be made to limit the increase of the population. 
Curiously enough, the most earnest advocacy of artificial 
restraints on multiplication is to be found in John Stuart 
Mill's Political Economy, and Mill was not a Socialist or 
Collectivist. Mill, indeed, advocated a voluntary restriction 
which to most readers has seemed a quite unpractical and 
impracticable proposal. When we consider how other habits — • 
that of drinking, for instance — which are admitted to be 
immoral and disgraceful, are nevertheless far too frequently 
and freely indulged, it is difficult to read MilFs speculations 
on this subject without a smile. But Mill, in spite of his 
enthusiasms, was a clear-headed man. He saw what the 
puzzle-headed latter-day fanatic does not see, that unless 
multiplication is to be somehow restrained, no artificial devices 
for promoting social prosperity have any chance of success. 
Whether, under a Collectivist regime, restraints on multi- 
plication would in the long run succeed in promoting social 
prosperity is another question. My belief is that they would 
not. We have seen already that the scheme of Collectivism 
implies the regulation of employment. Every child must be 



I.] The Impracticability of Socialism, 55 

maintained until his or her schooldays are over. Every 
youth and maiden, on leaving school, must be provided with 
some kind of employment. How is this to be done % What 
government, central or local, is wise enough and strong 
enough to perform such a task? If we suppose it placed in 
the hands of a very widely ramified local organisation — parish 
councils for example — is there not as much danger of their 
entering upon a course of competition as if they were private 
families ? 

We have seen that Schaffle explicitly disclaims any project 
of restrictions upon population, and that the fanatical Social- 
ists, such as the Fabian essayists, are completely silent upon 
the subject. It may, nevertheless, be worth while to refer to 
the only country where such restrictions are actually in force 
under the influence of a public opinion such as Mill hoped 
might come into existence. France, which Mill held up as 
an example, is now beginning to complain that her population 
is becoming actually scanty. French statesmen are seriously 
talking of offering rewards to the parents of large families. 
The remedies for over-population, so eloquently advocated by 
Mill, have done their work rather too well. But is France 
free from complaints of the existence of a ' proletariat ? ' By 
no means. Is France free from Socialist agitation? By no 
means. Germany, it is true, is just at present the headquarters 
of the movement, and it is also true that France is more free 
than most other European countries from the evils brought 
about by the presence of what Socialists call a proletariat. 
But France has by no means laid aside Socialism. There are, 
it is true, no Saint Simons, no Fouriers, no Louis Blancs ; 
but French workmen are as fond of the phrases of Socialistic 
agitation as ever they were. French men of letters, too, have 
by no means left off playing the role of eloquent Aaron to 
the inarticulate but suggestive Moses of German thought. 

In spite of all this — in spite, especially, of the extremely 
meddlesome character of public authority — France is, in two 
respects, extremely far from being a Socialistic nation. No- 
where is private property so jealously guarded. Nowhere is 
what we may call the individualism of the family held so 



56 A Plea for Liberty. [i. 

sacred. However willing he may be to observe self-imposed 
restraints, no Frenchman would tolerate for a moment a law 
prescribing a limitation on the number of his children. But 
the more clear-headed of the English philanthropists are be- 
ginning to see that some such law there must be if Socialism, 
or anything akin to Socialism, is to have effect. Schaffle, it 
is true, says the German Socialists do not demand any such 
law. The Fabian rhetoricians give the subject the go-by. 
But there are others who see clearly enough that it must 
come to such a law sooner or later. A writer in the daily 
press recently proposed that the clergy and the civil registrars 
should have a discretionary power to refuse marriage under 
certain circumstances to couples applying for their services. 
We know very well that the clergy would never exercise any 
such discretion. We may be pretty sure that the civil regis- 
trars would not do so, any more than the clergy. But suppose 
they did, every one knows what the consequence would be. 
Restraints on marriage always result in an increase of illicit 
unions and of illegitimate births. Are we prepared to make 
cohabitation out of wedlock a crime *? The mediaeval Church 
tried to do that, and conspicuously failed. Indeed, it is won- 
derful in how many instances modern Socialism is compelled, 
as it were, to hark back to the methods of mediaeval despot- 
ism, civil and ecclesiastical. 

The situation may be summed up in a sentence : Socialism, 
without restraints on the increase of population, would be 
utterly inefficient. With such restraints, it would be 
slavery. 

In a word, Socialism — the scheme of collective capital and 
collective production and distribution — breaks down the 
moment it is subjected to any practical test. Considered 
merely as a scheme for supplying the material wants of the 
community, it is seen at a glance to be totally incapable of 
adjusting the relation between supply and demand. I have 
suggested the practical test. If any Socialist were asked, 
' Suppose Socialism established now, how many suits of 
clothes, and of what qualities, will have to be in stock for 
the township of Little Pedlington on the ist of next June ?' 



I.] The I^npracticability of Socialism. 57 

either he could not answer the question at all^ or he would 
be compelled to fall back upon the device of a uniform. Still 
more difficult would it be to answer the question, ' Of the 
children born this year, how many boys do you propose to 
apprentice as tailors, and how many girls as dressmakers, in 
1904?'' Until Socialists can answer these questions, and 
others of like nature, Socialism has simply no locus standi as 
a practical scheme for the supply of material wants. That 
being so, a fortiori it is valueless as a scheme for the supply 
of wants which are not material. To do the enthusiasts of 
Socialism justice, none of them even pretend to include art and 
literature in their projects. This is all the more curious, 
because the present is a time when art and literature are 
being cultivated for the sake of profit more, apparently, than 
at any previous period of history ^. But inasmuch as the 
Socialist exponents, sober or enthusiastic, shirk the topic, I am 
entitled to say that they do not expect the Socialist community 
to cultivate art or literature. 

In addition to all this, it seems to me a very open question 
(to say the least) whether Socialism would really promote the 
comfort of the entire working class, supposing that it could be 
worked without the difficulties I have noted. The energetic 
workman, it may be conceded, would be successful under 
SociaUsm ; but then, he is already successful under Individual- 
ism. All workmen, however, are not energetic. What of the 
man who is below the average, or barely up to it, in energy, 
honesty, and sobriety? What of the man who has no vices, 
but whose character is shiftless, irresolute, wanting in ' back- 
bone ? ' Such a man, under Individualism, becomes a failure ; 
what would be his fate under Socialism'? I know of no in- 
fallible prescription whereby an idle man can be rendered 

^ Some very striking remarks on in that direction. But the interest 

the rewards given by society to men of the reference lies in this ; that 

of letters will be found in Professor Professor Graham emphasises very 

Graham's work, cited above {The strongly, though quite unconsciously, 

Social Problem, ch. v. p. 167 et seqq., the fact that literature is a pro- 

' Spiritual Producers and their Work'). fession, and is subject in the long 

Professor Graham is not a Socialist, run to commercial influences like 

though his opinions have some bias other professions. 
6 



58 A Plea for Liberty, [i. 

industrious, or an irresolute one steady of purpose, except one — 
the sharp spur of want ! Are Socialists prepared to suggest 
any other % If they are not, wherein is their system better than* 
Individualism % If they are, what is it % The prison, perhaps, 
or the scourge ? If so, some one may be tempted to say con- 
cerning the tender mercies of the philanthropist what the 
inspired writer said concerning those of the wicked. 

It remains only to sum up what I have attempted to prove, 
and I think succeeded in proving. 

Socialism would be totally inefficient as a producing and 
distributing scheme. Society is not an army, which can be 
fed on rations, clothed in a uniform, and lodged in barracks. 
Even if it were, the task would be too much for Government 
departments, which habitually fail, or commit shortcomings, 
in dealing with the special classes which they do undertake to 
feed, clothe, and lodge. The army and navy are composed of 
young men, and picked men, who are, or ought to be, in good 
average health and vigour. Yet the supply departments of 
both services, it is acknowledged on all hands, leave much to 
be desired. How much more difficult would the task be of 
maintaining women, children, the aged and the sick ! 

I have dealt pretty fully with the one department of 
Government which is always called successful, and I have 
shown that the success which is claimed for it must, to say the 
least, be conceded subject to large qualifications. I have 
shown that Government departments are not more merito- 
rious as employers of labour than they are as producers and 
distributors. 

I have suggested that the scheme of Socialism is wholly 
incomplete unless it includes a power of restraining the in- 
crease of population, which power is so unwelcome to English- 
men that the very mention of it seems to require an apology. 
I have showed that in France, where restraints on multiplica- 
tion have, been adopted into the popular code of morals, there 
is discontent on the one hand at the slow rate of increase, 
while on the other, there is still a ^ proletariat,' and Socialism 
is still a power in politics. 

I have put the question, how Socialism would treat the 



I.] The Impracticability of Socialism. 59 

residuum of the working class and of all classes — the class, 
not specially vicious, nor even necessarily idle, but below the 
average in power of will and in steadiness of purpose. I have 
intimated that such persons, if they belong to the upper or 
middle classes, are kept straight by the fear of falling out of 
class, and in the working class by positive fear of want. But 
since Socialism purposes to eliminate the fear of want, and 
since under Socialism the hierarchy of classes will either not 
exist at all or be wholly transformed, there remains for such 
persons no motive at all except physical coercion. Are we to 
imprison or flog all the ' ne'er-do-weels ? ' 

I began this paper by pointing out that there are inequali- 
ties and anomahes in the material world, some of which, like 
the obliquity of the ecliptic and the consequent inequality of 
the days' length, cannot be redressed at all. Others, like the 
caprices of sunshine and rainfall in different climates, can be 
mitigated, but must on the whole be endured. I am very far 
from asserting that the inequalities and anomalies of human 
society are strictly parallel with those of material nature. I 
fully admit that we are under an obligation to control nature 
so far as we can. But I think I have shown that the Socialist 
scheme cannot be relied upon to control nature, because it 
refuses to obey her. Socialism attempts to vanquish nature 
by a front attack. Individualism, on the contrary, is the 
recognition, in social politics, that nature has a beneficent as 
well as a malignant side. The struggle for life provides for 
the various wants of the human race, in somewhat the same 
way as the climatic struggle of the elements provides for 
vegetable and animal life — imperfectly, that is, and in a 
manner strongly marked by inequalities and anomalies. By 
taking advantage of prevalent tendencies, it is possible to 
mitigate these anomalies and inequalities, but all experience 
shows that it is impossible to do away with them. All history, 
moreover, is the record of the triumph of Individualism over 
something which was virtually Socialism or Collectivism, though 
not called by that name. In early days, and even at this day 
under archaic civilisations, the note of social life is the absence 
of freedom. But under every progressive civilisation, freedom 



6o A Plea for Liberty, [i. 

has made decisive strides — broadened down, as the poet says, 
from precedent to precedent. And it has been rightly and 
naturally so. 

Freedom is the most valuable of all human possessions, next 
after life itself. It is more valuable, in a manner, than even 
health. No human agency can secure health ; but good laws, 
justly administered, can and do secure freedom. Freedom, 
indeed, is almost the only thing that law can secure. Law 
cannot secure equality, nor can it secure prosperity. In the 
direction of equality, all that law can do is to secure fair play, 
which is equality of rights but is not equality of conditions. 
In the direction of prosperity, all that law can do is to keep 
the road open. That is the Quintessence of Individualism, 
and it may fairly challenge comparison with that Quintessence 
of Socialism we have been discussing. Socialism, disguise it 
how we may, is the negation of Freedom. That it is so, and 
that it is also a scheme not capable of producing even material 
comfort in exchange for the abnegation of Freedom, I think 
the foregoing considerations amply prove. 

Edwabd Stanley Robertson. 



II. 

THE LIMITS OF LIBERTY. 

"WORDSWORTH DONISTHOEPE. 



II. 

THE LIMITS OF LIBERTY. 

The power of the State may be defined as the resultant 
of all the social forces operating within a definite area. 
' It follows/ says Professor Huxley, with characteristic 
logical thoroughness, 'that no limit is, or can be, theoreti- 
cally set to State interference.' 

Ah extra — this is so. I have always endeavoured to show 
that the efiective majority has a right (a legal right) to do 
just what it pleases. How can the weak set a limit to the 
will of the strong? Of course, if the State is rotten, if it 
does not actually represent the effective majority of the 
country, then it is a mere sham, like some little old patriarch 
who rules his brawny sons by the prestige of ancient thrash- 
ings. 

The time comes in the life of every government when it 
becomes effete, when it rules the stronger by sheer force of 
prestige ; when the bubble waits to be pricked, and when the 
first determined act of resistance brings the whole card-castle 
down with a crash. The bouleversement is usually called a 
revolution. On the contrary, it is merely the outward and 
visible expression of a death which may have taken place 
years before. In such cases a limit can be set to State inter- 
ference by the simple process of exploding the State. Eut 
when a State is (as Hobbes assumes) the embodiment of the 
will of the effective majority — -force majeure — of the country, 
then clearly no limit can be set to its interference — ah extra. 
And this is why Hobbes (who always built on fact) describes 
the power of the State as absolute. This is why he says that 



64 A Plea for Liberty, [ii. 

each citizen has conveyed all his strength and power to the 
State. 

I fail to see any a priori assumption here. It is the 
plain truth of his time and of our own. We may agree with 
John Locke that there ought to be some limit to despotism, 
and we may keep on shifting the concentrated force from 
the hands of the One to those of the Few ; from the hands 
of the Few to those of the Many ; and from the hands of 
the Many to those of the Most — the numerical majority. But 
this handing about of the power cannot alter its nature ; it 
still remains unlimited despotism, as Hobbes rightly assumes. 
Locke's pretence that the individual citizens reserved certain 
liberties when the State was formed is of course the merest 
allegory, without any more foundation in fact than Rousseau's 
Contrat Social. It is on a par with the 'natural right' of 
every citizen born into the world to an acre of land and a 
good education. We may consider that nation wise which 
should guarantee these advantages to all its children, or 
we may not ; but we must never forget that the rights, when 
created, are created by the will of the strong for its own 
good pleasure, and not carved out of the absolute domain of 
despotism by any High Court of Eternal Justice. 

Surely it is the absence of all these d priori vapourings, 
common to Locke, Rousseau, and Henry George, which 
renders the writings of Hobbes so fascinating and so in- 
structive. 

Shall we then sit down like blind fatalists in presence 
of the doctrine 'no limit can be set to State-interference?' 
Certainly not. I have admitted that no limit can be set 
from %uithout. But just as we can influence the actions of 
a man by appeals to his understanding, so that it may 
be fairly said of such an one, 'he cannot lie,' and of 
another that it is easier to turn the sun from its course 
than Fabricius from the path of duty : so we may imbue 
the hearts of our own countrymen with the doctrine of in- 
dividualism in suchwise that it may sometime be said of 
England 'Behold a free country.' It is to this end that 
individuahsts are working. Just as a virtuous man im- 



II.] The Limits of Liberty. 65 

poses restrictions on the gratification of his own appetites, 
apparently setting a limit to his present will, and compelling 
a body to move in a direction other than that of least re- 
sistance, so, it is hoped, will the wise State of the future 
lay down a general principle of State-action for its own 
voluntary guidance, which principle is briefly expressed in 
the words Let he ^ 

In his effort to supply destructive criticism of a priori 
political philosophy, which is the task Professor Huxley set 
before him, it seems to me he has been a little unjust to 
Individualism. He has taken for granted that it is based 
on a priori assumptions and arguments which are as foreign 
to the reasoning of some of its supporters as to his own. 
The individualist claims that under a system of increasing 
political liberty, many evils, of which all alike complain, 
would disappear more rapidly and more surely before the 
forces of co-operation than they will ever do before the dis- 
tracted efforts of democratic ' regimentation."' 

Of course there are individualists as there are socialists, 
and, we may add, artists and moralists and most other -ists 
who hang most of their conclusions on capital letters. We 
have Liberty and Justice and Beauty and Virtue and aU the 
rest of the family ; but it is not fair to assert or even to 
insinuate that Individualism as a practical working doctrine 
in this country and in the United States is based on 
reasoning from abstractions. Professor Huxley refers to 
* modems who make to themselves metaphysical teraphim 
out of the Absolute, the Unknowable, the Unconscious, and 
the other verbal abstractions whose apotheosis is indicated 
by initial capitals.' And he adds, ' So far as this method of 
establishing their claims is concerned, socialism and indi- 

* Is it not a pity to go to France for Let be, let us see whether Elias will 

a term to denote a political idea so come to save him ' (Matt, xxvii. 49). 

peculiarly English ? The correct and There is a barbarous ring about Let ad, 

idiomatic English for laissez-faire is which is calculated to reflect on the 

let-he. * Let me be,' says the boy in doctrine conveyed. Eor the last 

the street, protesting against inter- seventeen years I have always found 

ference. Moreover, it is not only col- it convenient to speak of the Let-be 

loquial but classical. ' The rest said, School. 



66 A Plea for Liberty, [ii. 

vidualism are alike out of court.' Granted — but so is morality. 
Honesty, Truth, Justice, Liberty, and Right are teraphim 
when treated as such, every whit as ridiculous as the Un- 
knowable or the Unconditioned. Nevertheless it is surely 
possible to label general ideas with general names, after the 
discovery of their connotation, without being charged with 
the worship of abstractions. And unless Professor Huxley is 
prepared to dispense with such general ideas as Bight and 
Wrong, True, Beautiful and Free, I fail to see what objection 
he can have to the Unknowable when employed to denote 
what has been so carefully and clearly defined under that 
term by Mr. Spencer. 

At the same, time I admit that we have reason to thank 
Professor Huxley for his onslaught on Absolutism in politics, 
whereby he has done more good to the cause of progress 
than he could ever hope to do by merely dubbing himself 
either individualist or socialist. When the Majority learns 
that its acts can be criticised, just as other people's acts 
are criticised ; that it can behave in an ' ungentlemanly ' 
manner, as well as in a wrongful manner ; that it should 
be guided in its treatment of the minority by its consciences 
and not solely by laws of its own making ; then there 
will be no scope for any other form of government than 
that which is based on individualism ; and the Bights of 
Man will exist as reahties, and not as a mere expression 
denoting each man's private notions of what his rights ought 
to be. 

No one with the smallest claim to attention has been 
known to affirm that this or any other nation is yet ripe 
for the abolition of the State. Some of the more advanced 
individualists and philosophical anarchists express the view 
that absolute freedom from State-interference is the goal 
towards which civilisation is making, and, as is usual in the 
ranks of all political parties, there are not wanting impatient 
persons who contend that now is the time for every great 
reform. 

Such are the people who would grant representative in- 
stitutions to the Fijians, and who would model the Govern- 



II.] The Limits of Liberty, 6j 

ment of India on that of the United States of America. 
They may safely be left out of account. I suppose no one 
acquainted with his political writings will accuse Victor Yarros 
of backwardness or even of opportunism. Yet, says he : — 

The abolition of the external State must be preceded by the decay of the 
notions which breathe life and vigour into that clumsy monster : in other 
words, it is only when the people learn to value liberty, and to understand 
the truths of the anarchistic philosophy, that the question of practically abol- 
ishing the State looms up and acquires significance. 

Again, Mr. Benjamin Tucker, the high priest of anarchy in 
America, claims that it is precisely what is known in England 
as individualism. So far is he from claiming any natural 
right to liberty, that he expressly repudiates all such a priori 
postulates, and bases his political doctrine on the evidence (of 
which there is abundance) that liberty would be the mother 
of order. Keferring to Professor Huxley's attack on anar- 
chists as persons who build on baseless assumptions and 
fanciful suppositions, he says: — 

If all anarchists were guilty of such folly, scientific men like Professor 
Huxley could never be expected to have respect for them : but the professor 
has yet to learn that there are anarchists who proceed in a way that he him- 
self would enthusiastically approve ; who take nothing for granted ; who 
vitiate their arguments by no assumptions ; but who study the facts of social 
life, and from them derive the lesson that liberty would be the mother of 
order. 

The truth is that the science of society has met with 
general acceptance of late years, and (thanks chiefly to Mr. 
Spencer) even the most impatient reformers now recognise 
the fact that a State is an organism and not an artificial 
structure to be pulled to pieces and put together on a new 
model whenever it pleases the effective majoritj^ to do so. 
Advice which is good to a philosopher may be bad to a 
savage and worse to an ape. Similarly institutions which 
are well suited to one people may be altogether unsuited to 
another, and the best institutions conceivable for a perfect 
people would probably turn out utterly unworkable even in 
the most civiHsed country of this age. The most ardent 
constitution-framer now sees that the chances are very many 
against the Anglo-Saxon people having reached the zenith 



68 A Plea for Liberty, [ii. 

of progress exactly at the moment when Nature has been 
pleased to evolve Idw, as its guide. And if it must be 
admitted that we are not yet ripe for that unconditioned 
individual liberty which may be the type of the society of 
the future, it follows that for the present we must recognise 
some form of State-interference as necessary and beneficent. 
The problem is, What are the proper limits of liberty? and 
if these cannot be theoretically defined, what rules should 
be adopted for our practical guidance? With those who 
answer No limits, I will not quarrel. Such answer implies 
the belief that we have as a nation already reached the top 
rung of the ladder — that we are ripe for perfect anarchy. 
This is a question of fact which each can answer for himself. 
I myself do not believe that we have attained to this degree 
of perfection, and furthermore those who do believe it cannot 
evade the task of fixing the limits of liberty in a lower plane 
of social development. We can force them to co-operate with 
us by admitting their contention for the sake of argument, 
and then asking whether the Russians are ready for absolute 
freedom, and if so, whether the Hindoos are ready, or the 
Chinese, or the Arabs, or the Hottentots, or the tree- dwarfs ? 
The absolutist is compelled to draw the line sooner or later, 
and then he is likewise compelled to admit that the State has 
legitimate functions on the other side of that line. 

And he must also admit that in practice people have to 
settle where private freedom and State-action shall mutually 
limit each other. Benjamin Tucker's last word still leaves us 
in perplexity as to the practical rule to be adopted now. Let 
me quote his words and readily endorse them, — as far as they 



Then liberty always, say the anarchists. No use of force, except against 
the invader ; and in those cases where it is difficult to tell whether the alleged 
offender is an invader or not, still no use of force except where the necessity 
of immediate solution is so imperative that we must use it to save ourselves. 
And in these few cases where we must use it, let us do so frankly and squarely, 
acknowledging it as a matter of necessity, without seeking to harmonise our 
action with any political ideal or constructing any far-fetched theory of a 
State or collectivity having prerogatives and rights superior to those of indi- 
viduals and aggregations of individuals and exempted from the operation of 
the ethical principles which individuals are expected to observe. This is the 



II.] The Limits of Liberty, ^ 69 

best rule that I can frame as a guide to voluntary co-operators. To apply to 
it only one case, I think that under a system of anarchy, even if it were 
admitted that there was some ground for considering an unvaccinated 
person an invader, it would be generally recognised that such invasion was 
not of a character to require treatment by force, and that any attempt to treat 
it by force would be regarded as itself an invasion of a less doubtful and more 
immediate nature, requiring as such to be resisted. 

But how far does this ^ best rule ' carry us ? Let us test it 
by the case selected. Mr. Tucker thinks that under a regimne 
of liberty it would be generally recognised that such an 
invasion of the individual's freedom of action as is implied by 
compulsory vaccination is a greater and a worse invasion than 
the converse invasion of the general freedom by walking 
about in public ' a focus of infection.' Perhaps it would be so 
recognised in some future state of anarchy, but is it so 
recognised nowl I think not. The majority of persons, in 
this country at least, treat it, and consider that it ought to be 
treated, as an offence; just as travelling in a public con- 
veyance with the scarletina-rash is treated. And the question 
is, What, in face of actual public opinion, ought we to do 
to-day 1 The rule gives us no help. Even the most avowed 
State-socialist is ready to say that compulsion in such matters 
is justifiable only when it is ' so imperative that we iniust use 
it to save ourselves.' He is ready to do so, if need be, ' fairly 
and squarely, acknowledging it as a matter of necessity.' But 
so is the protectionist; so is the religious persecutor. Mr. 
Tucker continues : — 

The question before us is not what measures and means of interference we 
are justified in instituting, but which of those already existing we should first 
lop off. And to this the anarchists answer that unquestionably the first to 
go should be those that interfere most fundamentally with a free market, and 
that the economic and moral changes that would result from this would act 
as a solvent upon all the remaining forms of interference. 

Good again, but why 1 There must be some middle prin- 
ciple upon which this conclusion is based. And it is for this 
middle principle, this practical rule for the guidance of those 
who must act at once, that a search must be made. To restate 
the question : — 

Can any guiding principle be formulated whereby we may 
know where the State should interfere with the liberties of its 



70 A Plea for Liberty, [ii. 

citizens and where it should not ? Can any definite limits be 
assigned to State action ? Where in theory shall we draw the 
line, which in practice we have to dra%u somewhere ? 

Surely an unprincipled State is as bad as an unprincipled 
man. Yet what should we think of a man who, in moral 
questions, decided each case on its merits as a question of 
immediate expediency ? who admitted that he told the truth 
or told lies just as it suited the object he had presently in 
view 1 We should say he was an unprincipled man, and we 
should rightly distrust him. An appeal to Liberty is as futile 
as an appeal to Justice, until we have defined Liberty. 

Various suggestions have been made in order to get over 
this difiiculty. Some people say. Let every man do what is 
right in his own eyes, provided he does not thereby injure 
others. To quote Mill: — 

The principle is that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, indi- 
vidually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of 
their number, is self-protection : that the only purpose for which power can 
be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community against his 
will is to prevent harm to others. 

To this Lord Pembroke shrewdly replies : — 

But how far does this take us ? The very kernel of our difficulty is the 
fact that hardly any actions are purely self-regarding. The greater part of 
them bear a double aspect — one which concerns self, another which concerns 
others. 

We might even go further ; we might plausibly maintain 
that every act performed by a citizen from his birth to his 
death injures his neighbours more or less indirectly. If he 
eats his dinner he diminishes the supply of food and raises the 
price. His very existence causes an enhanced demand for the 
necessaries of life ; hence the cry against over-population. 
One who votes on the wrong side in a Parliamentary election 
injures all his fellow-countrymen. One who marries a girl 
loved by another injures that other. One who preaches 
Christianity or Agnosticism (if untrue) injures his hearers and 
their relatives and posterity. One who wins a game pains 
the loser. One who sells a horse for more than it is worth 
injures the purchaser, and one who sells it for less than it is 
worth injures his own family. 



II.] The Limits of Liberty, 71 

Taking practical questions concerning which there is much 
dispute ; there are advocates of State-interference with the 
citizen's freedom to drink what he likes, who base their action 
not on the ground that the State should protect a fool against 
the effects of his folly, but on the ground that drink fills the 
workhouses and the prisons, which have to be maintained 
out of the earnings of the sober ; and, furthermore, that drink 
leaves legacies of disease and immorality to the third and the 
fourth generation. Advocates of compulsory vaccination 
have been heard to say that they would willingly leave those 
who refuse the boon to perish of small-pox, but that unvac- 
cinated persons are foci of infection, and must be suppressed 
in the common interest. Many people defend the Factory 
Acts, not for the sake of the apathetic workers who will not 
take the trouble to organise and to defend themselves, but for 
the sake of the physique of the next generation. The sup- 
pression of gambling-hells is favoured by many, not on account 
of the green-horns who lose their money, but because they are 
schools of cheating and fraud, and turn loose upon society 
a number of highly-trained swindlers. On the whole, Mill's 
test will not do. 

Some say, 'We must fall back on the consensus of the 
people ; there is nothing else for it ; we must accept the 
arbitrary will — the caprice — of the governing class, be they 
the many or be they the few.' Others, again, qualify that 
contention. These say, let us loyally accept the verdict 
of the majority. This is democracy. I have nothing 
to urge against it. But, unfortunately, it only shoves the 
question a step further back. How are the many to decide 
for themselves when they ought to interfere with the minority 
and when they ought not? This is just the guiding principle 
of which we are in search ; and it is no answer to tell us 
that certain persons must decide it for themselves. We are 
amongst the number; what is our vote going to be? Of 
course the stronger can do what they choose ; but what 
ought they to choose ? What is the wisest course for their 
own welfare, leaving the minority out of the reckoning ? 

Socialists say, treat all alike, and all will be well. But 



72 A Plea for Liberty, [ii. 

equality in slavery is not liberty. Even the fox in the fable 
would not have had his own tail cut off for the fun of seeing 
the other foxes in like plight. After the event, it was quite 
another matter ; and one can forgive those who are worked to 
death for demanding that the leisured classes shall be forced 
to earn their living. Lock us all up in gaol^ and we shall all 
be equally moral and equally happy. 

Nor is it any solution of this particular problem to abolish 
the State, however prudent that course might or might not 
be : the answer to the present question is not ' No Govern- 
ment!' For this again merely throws the difficulty a step 
further back. We may put the State on one side and imagine 
a purely anarchic form of society, and the same question still 
arises. That is to say, philosophical anarchists do not pretend 
that the anarchy of the wild beasts is conceivable among 
sane men^ still less desirable, — though they are usually 
credited with this imbecile notion. They believe that all 
necessary restrictions on absolute liberty can be brought 
about by voluntary combination. Let us admit that this may 
be so. The question then arises, for what purposes are people 
to combine ? Thus the majority in a club can, if they choose, 
forbid billiard-playing on Sundays. Ought they to do so? 
Of course the majority may disapprove of and refrain from it, 
but ought they to permit the minority to play ? If not, on 
what grounds? The Christians in certain parts of Russia 
have an idea that they are outwitted and injured by their 
Jew fellow-citizens. If unrestrained by the stronger majority 
outside — the State — they persecute and drive off the Jews. 
Ought they to do this ? If you reply, * Leave it to the sense 
of the people/ the answer is settled^ they ought. It is, there- 
fore, no answer to our question to say^ Away with the State. 
It may be a good cry, but it is no solution of our problem. 
Because you cannot do away with the effective majority. 

To reply that out of one hundred persons, the seventy-five 
weak and therefore orderly persons can combine against the 
twenty-five advocates of brute-force, is merely to beg the 
whole question. Ought they to combine for this purpose? 
And if so, why not for various other purposes ? Why not for 



II.] The Limits of Liberty. 73 

the very purposes for which they are now banded together in 
an association called the State ? 

You rejoin, 'True, but it would be a voluntary State, and 
that makes all the difference ; no one need join it against his 
will.' My answer is, he need not join it now. The existence 
of the burglar in our midst is sufficient evidence of this. But 
since the anarchy of the wild beasts is out of the question, it 
is clear that certain arbitrary and aggressive acts on the part 
of individuals must be met and resisted by voluntary com- 
bination — by the voluntary combination of a sufficient number 
of others to overpower them by fear, or, if necessary, by brute 
force. Again I ask, for what purposes are these combinations 
to be made ? 

Whether we adopt despotism or democracy, socialism or 
anarchy, we are always brought back to this unanswered 
question, What are the limits of group-action in relation to 
its units ? Shall we say that the State should never interfere 
with the mutual acts of willing parties ? (And by the State I 
wish to be understood as here meaning the effective majority 
of a group, be it a club or be it a nation.) This looks 
plausible, but alas ! who are the parties % The parties acting, 
or the parties affected % Clearly the latter, for otherwise, two 
persons could agree to kill a third. Eut who then are the 
persons affected? Suppose a print-seller, with a view to 
business, exposes in his shop-window a number of objection- 
able pictures, for the attraction of those only who choose to 
look at them and possibly to buy them. I have occasion to 
walk through that street ; am I a party ? How am I injured ? 
Is my sense of decency shocked and hurt? But if this is 
sufficient ground for public interference, then I have a right 
to call for its assistance when my taste is hurt and shocked 
by a piece of architecture which violates the laws of high art. 
I have similar ground of complaint when a speaker gets up in 
a public place and preaches doctrines which are positively 
loathsome to me. I have a right of action against a man 
clothed in dirty rags, or with pomaded hair or a scented 
pocket-handerchief. 

If you reply that in these cases my hurt is not painful 
7 



74 -^ P^^<^ for Liberty, [ii. 

enough to justify any interference with another's freedom, 
I have only to cite the old and almost forgotten arguments 
for the inquisition. The possible eternal damnation of my 
children, who are exposed to heretical teaching, is surely 
a sufficiently painful invasion of my happiness to warrant 
the most strenuous resistance. And even to modern ears, 
it will seem reasonable that I should have grounds of action 
against a music-hall proprietor who should offend the moral 
sense of my children with songs of a pernicious character. 
This test then will not do. 

It has been suggested that the State should not meddle 
except on the motion of an individual alleging injury to 
himself. In other words, that the State must never act as 
prosecutor, but leave all such matters entirely to private 
initiative ; and that no person should be permitted to com- 
plain that some other person is injured or likely to be injured 
by the act complained of. But there are two valid objections 
to this rule: firstly, it provides no test of injury or hurt; 
secondly, it would not meet the case of cruelty to animals or 
young children, or imbeciles or persons too poor or too ill to 
take action. It would permit of the murder of a friendless 
man. This will not do. 

May I now venture to present my own view? I feel 
convinced that there is no a priori solution of the problem. 
We cannot draw a hard and fast line between the proper 
field of State-interference and the field sacred to individual 
freedom. There is no general principle whereby the effective 
majority can decide whether to interfere or not. And yet we 
are by no means left without guidance. Take the parallel 
region of morals: no man has ever yet succeeded in de- 
fining virtue a priori. All we can say is that those acts 
which eventually conduce to the permanent welfare of 
the agent are moral acts, and those which lead in the 
opposite direction are immoral. But if any one asks for 
guidance beforehand, he has to go away empty. It is 
true, certain preachers tell him to stick to the path of 
virtue, but when it comes to casuistry they no more know 
which is the path of virtue than he does himself 'Which 



II.] The Limits of Liberty, 75 

is the way to York ? ' asks a traveller. ' Oh, stick to 
the- York Eoad, and you can't go wrong.' That is the sum 
and substance of what the moralists have to tell us. And 
yet we do not consider that we are altogether without 
guidance in these matters. Middle principles, reached by 
induction from the experience of countless generations, have 
been formulated, which cannot be shown to be true by any 
process of deduction from higher truths, but which we trust, 
simply because we have found them trustworthy a thousand 
times, and our parents and friends have safely trusted them 
too. Do not lie. Do not steal. Do not hurt your neighbour's 
feelings without cause. And why not ? Because, as a general 
rule, it will not pay. 

Where is the harm in saying two and two make five? 
Either you are believed or you are disbelieved. If dis- 
believed, you are a failure. One does not talk for the music 
of the thing, but to convey a belief. If you are believed, 
you have given away false coin or a sham article. The 
recipient thinks he can buy with it or work with it, 
and lo ! it breaks in his hand. He hates the cause of his 
disappointment. ' Well, what of that ? ' you say ; ' if I had 
been strong enough or plucky enough, I would have broken 
his head, and he would have hated me for that. Then why 
should I be ashamed to tell a lie to a man whom I de- 
liberately wish to hurt % ' Here we come nearly to the end 
of our tether. Experience tells us that it is mean and 
self-ivouTiding to lie, and we believe it. Those who try find 
it out in the end. 

And if this is the true view of individual morals, it should 
also be found true of what may be called Group-morals or 
State-laws. We must give up all hope of deducing good laws 
from high general principles^ and rest content with those 
middle principles which originate in expedience and are 
verified by experience. And we must search for these 
middle principles by observing the tendency of civilisation. 
In morals they have long been stated with more or less 
precision, but in politics they are still unformulated. By 
induction from the cases presented to us in the long history 



76 A Plea for Liberty, [ii. 

of mankind, we can, I believe, find a sound working answer 
to the question we set out with. All history teaches us that 
there has been an increasing tendency to remove the re- 
strictions placed by the State on the absolute liberty of its 
citizens. That is an observed fact which brooks no contra- 
diction. In the dawn of civilisation, we find the bulk of the 
people in a state of absolute bondage, and even those who 
supposed themselves to be the independent classes, subject to 
a most rigorous despotism. Every act from the cradle to the 
grave must conform to the most savage and exacting laws. 
Nothing was too sacred or too private for the eye of the 
State. Take the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, 
the Persians ; we find them all in a state of the most complete 
subjection to central authority. Probably the code of law 
best known to us, owing to its adoption as the canvas on 
which European religion is painted, is the code of the Jewish 
theocracy. Most of us know something of the drastic and 
searching rules laid down in the books of Moses. Therein we 
find every concern of daily life ruled and regulated by the 
legislature ; how and when people shall wash themselves, what 
they may eat and what they must avoid, how the food is to 
be cooked, what clothes may be worn, whom they may marry, 
and with what rites ; while, in addition to this, their religious 
views are carefully provided for them and also their morals, 
and in case of transgression, intentional or accidental, the 
form of expiation to be made. Nor were these laws at all 
peculiar to the Jews. On the contrary, the laws of some of 
the contemporary civilisations seem to have been, if possible, 
even more exacting and frivolously meddlesome. The Greek 
and Roman laws were nothing like the Oriental codes, but 
still they were far more meddlesome and despotic than 
anything we have known in our day. And even in free 
and merry England we have in the olden times put up with 
an amount of fussy State-interference which would not be 
tolerated for a week now-a-days. One or two specimens of 
early law in this country may be cited in order to recall the 
extent and severity of this kind of legislation. 



II.] The Limits of Liberty. 77 

They shall have bows and arrows, and use the same of Sundays and holi- 
days ; and leave all playing at tennis or football and other games called 
quoits, dice, casting of the stone, kailes, and other such importune games. 

Forasmuch as labourers and grooms keep greyhounds and other dogs, and 
on the holidays when good Christians be at church hearing divine service, 
they go hunting in parks, warrens, and connigries, it is ordained that no 
manner of layman which hath not lands to the value of forty shillings a year 
shall from henceforth keep any greyhound or other dog to hunt, nor shall he 
use ferrets, nets, heys, harepipes nor cords, nor other engines for to take or 
destroy deer, hares, nor conies, nor other gentlemen's game, under pain of 
twelve months' imprisonment. 

For the great dearth that is in many places of the realm of poultry, it is 
ordained that the price of a young capon shall not pass threepence, and of an 
old fourpence, of a hen twopence, of a pullet a penny, of a goose fourpence. 

Esquires and gentlemen under the estate of a knight shall not wear cloth 
of a higher price than four and a-half marks, they shall wear no cloth of gold 
nor silk nor silver, nor no manner of clothing embroidered, ring, button, nor 
brooch of gold nor of silver, nor nothing of stone, nor no manner of fur ; and 
their wives and daughters shall be of the same condition as to their vesture 
and apparel, without any turning-up or purfle or apparel of gold silver nor of 
stone. 

Because that servants and labourers will not, nor by a long season would, 
serve and labour without outrageous and excessive hire, and much more than 
hath been given to such servants and labourers in any time past, so that for 
scarcity of the said servants and labourers the husbands and land-tenants 
may not pay their rents nor live upon their lands, to the great damage and 
loss as well of the Lords as of the Commons, it is accorded and assented that 
the bailiff for husbandry shall take by the year 1 3s. 3d. and his clothing once 
by the year at most ; the master hind los., the carter los., the shepherd los., 
the oxherd 6s. 8d., the swineherd 6s., a woman labourer 6s., a dey 6s., a driver 
of the plough 'js. at the most, and every other labourer and servant according 
to his degree ; and less in the country where less was wont to be given, 
without clothing, courtesy or other reward by covenant. And if any give or 
take by covenant more than is above specified, at the first that they shall be 
thereof attainted, as well the givers as the takers, shall pay the value of the 
excess so taken, and at the second time of their attainder the double value of 
such excess, and at the third time the treble value of such excess, and if the 
taker so attainted have nothing whereof to pay the said excess, he shall have 
forty days' imprisonment. 

One can cite these extraordinary enactments by the score, 
with the satisfactory result of raising a laugh at the expense 
of our ancestors ; but before making too merry, let us examine 
the beam in our own eye. Some of the provisions of our 
modern Acts of Parliament, when looked at from a proper 
distance, are quite as ludicrous as any of the little tyrannies 
of our ancestors. I do not wish to tread on delicate ground. 



78 A Plea for Liberty. [ii. 

or to raise party bias, and therefore I will resist the tempta- 
tion of citing modern instances of legislative drollery ^. 
Doubtless the permanent tendency in this country, as all 
through history, is in a direction opposed to this sort of 
grandmotherly government ; but the reason is not, I fear, 
our superior wisdom ; it is the increasing number of con- 
flicting interests, all armed with democratic power, which 
renders it difficult. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is 
weak. 

I can imagine no healthier task for our new school of social 
reformers than a careful enquiry into the efl'ects of all State 
attempts to improve humanity. It would take too long to go 
through even a few of them now. There are all the statutes 
of Plantagenet days against forestalling and regrating and 
usury ; there are the old sumptuary laws, the fish laws, the 
cloth laws, the Tippling Acts, the Lord's Day Observance Act, 
the Act against making cloth by machinery, which^ by its 
prohibition of the ' divers devilish contrivances,' drove trad© 
to Holland and to Ireland, and thus made it needful to 
suppress the Irish woollen trade. Still, on the whole, as 
I have said, State interference shows signs of becoming 
weaker and weaker as civilisation progresses. And this 
brings us back to our original question, What is the rule 
whereby the majority is to guide itself as to where it should 
interfere with the freedom of individuals and where it should 
not % It is this : while according the same worship to Liberty 
in politics that we accord to Honesty in private dealings, 
hardly permitting ourselves to believe that its violation can 
in any case be wise or permanently expedient, — while leaning 
to Liberty as we lean to Truth, and deviating from it only 
when the arguments in favour of despotism are absolutely 
overwhelming, our aim should be to find out by study of 
history what those classes of acts are, in which State- 

^ I may, however, refer to a quaint the name of our forefathers and fling 
tract entitled ' Municipal Socialism,' at the heads of those pharisaical re- 
published by the Liberty and Property formers of to-day who never weary 
Defence League. This capital satire on of tittering at 'the wisdom of our 
modern local legislation I take up in ancestors.' 



IT.] The Li?mts of Liberty, 79 

interference shows signs of becoming weakened, and as far as 
possible to hasten on the day of complete freedom in such 
matters. 

When the student of history sees how the Statute of 
Labourers broke down in its effort to regulate freedom of 
contract between employer and employed, in the interest of 
the employer, he will admit the futility of renewing the 
attempt, this time in the interest of the employed. When 
he reads the preamble^ (or pre-ramble as it is aptly styled 
in working-men's clubs) to James's seventh Tippling Act, he 
will be less sanguine in embarking on modern temperance 
legislation. 

We find the same record of failure and accompanying 
mischiefs all along the line, and it is mainly our ignorance 
of history that blinds us to the truth. By this process of 
induction, the earnest and honest reformer is led to discover 
what those individual acts are which are really compatible 
with social cohesion. He finds that while the State tends to 
suppress violence and fraud and stealth with ever-increasing 
severity, it is at the same time more and more tolerant, not 
from sympathy, but from necessity, of the results, good, bad, 
and indifferent, of free contract between full-grown sane men 
and women. 

And when a well-wisher to mankind has once thoroughly 
appreciated and digested this general principle^ based as it 
is on a survey of facts and history, and not woven out of 
the dream- stuff of db priori philosophy, he will be content 
to remove all artificial hindrances to progress, and to watch 
the evolution of society, instead of trying to model it accord- 
ing to his own vague ideas of the Just, and the Good, and the 
Beautiful. 

I wish to show that the only available method of discover- 
ing the true limits of liberty at any given period is the 
historic. History teaches us that there has been a marked 

^ ' Whereas, notwithstanding all enness doth more and more abound, 

former laws and provisions already to the great oifence of Almighty God 

made, the inordinate and extreme and the wasteful destruction of God's 

vice of excessive drinking and drunk- good creatures . . .' 



8o A Plea for Liberty, [ii. 

tendency (in the main continuous) to reduce the number of 
State-restrictions on the absolute freedom of the citizens. 
State-prohibitions are becoming fewer and more definite, 
while, on the other hand, some of them are at the same time 
more rigorously enforced. Freedom to murder and rob is 
more firmly denied to the individual, while in the meantime 
he has won the liberty to think as he pleases, to say a good 
deal more of what he pleases, to dress in accordance with 
his own taste, to eat when and what he likes, and to do, 
without let or hindrance, a thousand things which, in the 
olden times, he was not allowed to do without State-super- 
vision. The proper aim of the reformer, therefore, is to find 
out, by a study of history, exactly what those classes of acts 
are in which State-interference shows signs of becoming 
weaker and weaker, and what those other classes of acts are 
in which such interference tends to be more rigorous and 
regular. He will find that these two classes are becoming 
more and more difierentiated. And he will then, to the 
utmost of his ability, hasten on the day of absolute freedom 
in the former class of cases, and insist on the most determined 
enforcement of the law in the latter class. Whether this duty 
will in time pass into other hands, that is to say, whether 
private enterprise will ever supplant the State in the 
performance of this function, and whether that time is 
near or remote, are questions of the greatest interest. 
What we are mainly concerned to note is that the organisa- 
tion or department upon which this duty rests incurs a re- 
sponsibility which must, if society is to maintain its vitality, 
be faithfully borne. The business of carrying out the funda- 
mental laws directed against the lower forms of competition, 
— murder, robbery, fraud, &c. — must, by whomsoever under- 
taken, be unflinchingly performed, or the entire edifice of 
modern civilisation will fall to pieces. 

It is enough to make a rough survey of the acts of citizens 
in which the State claims, or has at one time claimed, to 
exercise control ; to track those claims through the ages ; and 
to note the changes which have taken place in those claims. 
It remains to follow up the tendency into the future. Anyone 



II.] The Limits of Liberty. 8i 

undertaking this task will, I repeat, find himself in the presence 
of two large and fairly well-defined classes of State-restrictions 
on private liberty ; those which tend to become more thorough 
and invariable, and those which tend to become weaker, more 
spasmodic and variable. And he will try to abolish these 
unprincipled interferences altogether, in the belief, based on 
history, that, though some harm will result from the change, 
a far more than compensating advantage will accrue to the 
race. In short, what we have to do is to find the Least 
Common Eond in politics, as a mathematician finds the Least 
Common Multiple in the field of numbers. 

Take these two joint-stock companies, and consider their 
prospects. The first is formed for the purpose of purchasing 
a square mile of land, for getting the coal from under the 
surface, for erecting furnaces on the land, for making pig-iron 
and converting it into wrought iron and steel, for building 
houses, churches, and schools for the workpeople, and for 
converting them and their neighbours to the Catholic faith, 
and for doing all such other matters and things as shall from 
time to time appear good to the Board of Directors. The 
second company is formed for the purpose of leasing a square 
mile of land, for getting the coal from under the surface, and 
selling it to the coal-merchants. Now that is just the diflfer- 
ence between the State of the past and the State of the future. 
The shareholders in the second company are not banded 
together or mutually pledged and bound by a multitude of 
obligations, but by the fewest compatible with the joint aim. 
The company with the Least Common Bond is usually the 
most prosperous. A State held together by too many com- 
pacts will perform all or most of its functions ill. What we 
have to find is this Least Common Bond. Surely it would be 
absurd to argue that because the shareholders should not be 
bound by too many compacts, therefore they should not 
be bound by any. It is folly to pretend that each should 
be free to withdraw when and how he chooses ; that he 
should be free to go down into the pits, and help himself 
to the common coal, in any fashion agreeable to himself, so 
long as he takes no more than his own portion. By taking 



82 A Plea for Liberty. [ii. 

shares in tlie Midland Railway Company, I have not bought 
the right to grow primroses on the line, or to camp out on the 
St. Pancras Station platform. My liberty to do what I choose 
with my share of the joint- stock is suspended. I am to that 
extent in subjection. My fellow-shareholders, or the majority 
of them, are my masters. They can compel me to spend my 
own money in making a line of rails which I am sure will 
never pay. Yet I do not grumble. But if they had the 
power (by our compact) to declare war on the Great Northern, 
or to import Dutch cheeses and Indian carpets, I should not 
care to be a citizen or shareholder of that particular company 
or state. 

What we have got to do, then, is to purge the great 
company which has long ago been formed for the purpose of 
utilising the soil of this country to the best effect, from the 
multifarious functions with which it has overburdened itself. 
We, the shareholders, have agreed that the Ked-Indian system 
is not suited to this end ; and we have therefore agreed to 
forego our rights (otherwise admitted) of taking what we 
want from each other by force or fraud. This seems to be a 
necessary article of association. There is nothing to prevent 
us from agreeing to forego other rights and liberties if we 
choose ; and possibly there may be some other restraints on 
our individual liberty which can be shown to be desirable, if 
not essential, to the success of the undertaking. If so, let 
them be stated, and the reason for their adoption given. If, 
on the other hand, it can be shown that a large and happy 
population can be supported on this soil without any other 
mutual restriction on personal freedom than that which is 
involved in the main article of association, would it not be as 
well for all if each kept charge of his own conscience and his 
own actions % 

And here I should like to guard myself against misappre- 
hension. Individualists are usually supposed to regard the 
State as a kind of malevolent ogre. Maleficent it is ; but by 
no means malevolent. The State never intervenes without 
a reason, whether we deem that reason valid or invalid. The 
reasons alleged are very numerous and detailed, but they all 



II.] The Limits of Liberty, Z'^y 

fall under one of two heads. The State interferes either to 
defend some of the parties concerned against the others, or to 
defend itself against all the parties concerned. This has 
nothing to do with the distinction between crimes and civil 
injuries; it is more in line with the ethical distinction 
between self-regarding and other-regarding vices. Thus when 
a State punishes prize-fighters, it is not because one of them 
injures the other, but because the sport is demoralising: the 
State is itself injured, and not any determinate person. 
Similarly, there are many laws punishing drunkenness, quite 
apart from the violence and nuisance due to it. In these 
cases the State alleges that, though no determinate citizen 
is injured, yet the race suffers, and rightly punishes the 
offence with a view to eliminating the habit. 

Putting on one side all those acts which injure determinate 
persons, whether crimes or civil injuries, let us see what the 
State has done and is doing in this country with regard to 
acts against which no particular citizen has any good ground 
of complaint. We may classify the subjects of these laws 
either according to the object affected, or according to the vice 
aimed at. 

Taking some of the minor objects of the State's solicitude 
by way of illustration, we find that at one time or another 
it has interfered more or less with nearly all popular games, 
many sports, nearly the whole of the fine arts, and many 
harmless and harmful pleasures which cannot be brought 
under any of those three heads. 

In looking for the motive which prompted the State to 
meddle with these matters, let us give our fathers credit for 
the best motive, and not, as is usually done, the worst. 
Football, tennis, nine-pins, and quoits were forbidden, as I 
have pointed out, because the State thought that the time 
wasted over them might more advantageously be spent in 
archery, which was quite as entertaining and far more 
useful. That was a good reason, but it was not a sufficient 
reason to modern minds ; and moreover the law failed in its 
object. Some other games, such as baccarat, dice, trump, and 
primero, were put down because they led to gambling. And 



84 A Plea for Liberty, [ii. 

gambling was objected to for the good and ample reason that 
those who indulge in it are morally incapacitated for steady 
work. Lotteries and betting come under this censure. One 
who thinks he sees his way to make a thousand per cent, on 
his capital in a single evening without hard work cannot be 
expected to devote himself with zeal to the minute economies 
of his trade, for the purpose of making six per cent, instead of 
five on the capital invested. Wealth-production is on the 
average a slow process, and all attempts to hurry up nature 
and take short cuts to opulence are intoxicating, enervating, 
disappointing, and injurious, not only to those who make 
them, but to all those who witness the triumph of the lucky, 
without fixing their attention on the unsuccessful. Gambling, 
in short, is wrong ; but this does not necessarily warrant the 
State in forbidding it. Another reason alleged on behalf of 
interference was, and still is, that the simple are outwitted by 
the cunning. But as this is true of all competition, even the 
healthiest, it does not seem to be a valid reason for State- 
action. It is also said that games of chance lead to cheating 
and fraud. But this is by no means a necessary consequence. 
Indeed, some of the most inveterate gamblers are the most 
honourable of men. Again, the State refuses to sanction 
betting contracts for the same reason that under the Statute 
of Frauds it requires certain agreements to be in writing; 
namely, to ensure deliberateness and sufiicient evidence of the 
transaction. I think Barbeyrac overlooks this aspect of the 
case in his Traite de Jeu, in which he defends the lawfulness 
of chance-games. He says ; — 

If I am at liberty to promise and give my property, absolutely and uncon- 
ditionally, to whomsoever I please, why may I not promise and give a certain 
sum, in the event of a person proving more fortunate or more skilful than I, 
with respect to the result of certain contingencies, movements, or combina- 
tions, on which we had previously agreed ? . . . Gaming is a contract, and 
in every contract the mutual consent of the parties is the supreme law ; this 
is an incontestable maxim of natural equity. 

But, as matter of fact, the State does not prohibit, or even 
refuse to sanction, all contracts based on chance. It merely 
requires all or some of the usual guarantees against impulse, 
together with sufficient evidence and notification. It is true. 



il] The Limits of Liberty. 85 

you are not allowed to bet sixpence with a friend in a public- 
house that one horse will beat another in a race; you are 
allowed to bet a thousand pounds on the same event in your 
own house or at Tattersall's ; but if you win and do not get 
paid you have no redress in a Court of law. But if you bet 
that your baby will die within twelve months, you are not 
only permitted to make the bet, but, in case the contingency 
arises, you can recover the stakes in a Court, provided always 
the gentlemen you bet with have taken the precaution to dub 
themselves Life Assurance Society. You may also send a 
ship to sea, and bet that it will go to the bottom before it 
reaches its destination. You will recover your odds in a 
Court, provided the other parties are called underwriters, or 
some other suitable name. You may bet that some one will 
set fire to your house before next Christmas, and, if this 
happens, the Court will compel the other party to pay, though 
the odds are about 1000 to i — provided such other party is 
called a Fire Insurance Oifice. Again, if twenty men put a 
shilling each into a pool, buy a goose, a surloin of beef, and 
a plum-pudding, and then spin a teetotum to see who shall 
take the lot, that is a lottery, and the twenty men are all 
punished for the sin by the State. But if a lady buys a 
fire-screen for £0^, and the same twenty men put a sovereign 
each into the pool, and spin the teetotum to see who shall 
have the screen, and the £%o goes to the Missionary Society, 
that is called a bazaar raffle, and no one is punished by the 
State. If a dozen men put a hundred pounds apiece into a 
pool, to be the property of him who outlives the rest, that is 
called tontine, and is not only permitted but guaranteed by the 
State. If you bet with another man that the Eureka Mine 
Stocks will be dearer in. three months than they are now, 
that is called speculation on the Stock Exchange, and the 
State will enforce the payment of the bet. But if you bet 
that the next throw of the dice will be higher than the last, 
that is called gambling, and the State will not enforce the 
payment of the bet. If you sell boxes of toffee for a penny 
each, on the understanding that one box out of every twenty 
contains a bright new threepenny-bit, that again is called a 



S6 A Plea for Liberty, [ii. 

lottery, and you go to prison for the crime. But if you sell 
newspapers for a penny each, on the understanding that in a 
certain contingency the buyer may net .^loo, that is called^ 
advertisement, and you go not to prison, but possibly (if you 
sell plenty) to Parliament. If you bet that somebody will 
redeem his written promise to pay a certain sum of money 
at a certain date, that is called bill-discounting, and the State 
sanctions the transaction ; but if you bet that the same person 
will defeat his opponent in a chess-match (though similarly 
based on a calculation of probabilities and knowledge of his 
character and record), it is a transaction which the State 
frowns at, and certainly will not sanction. Who now will say 
that the State refuses to sanction bets ? Gambling, speculation, 
raffles, lotteries, bill- discounting, life-assurance, fire-insurance, 
underwiiting, tontine, sweepstakes — what are these but differ- 
ent names for the same kind of bargain, — a contract based on 
an unforeseen contingency, — a bet ? And yet how differently 
they are treated by the State ! Neither is it fair to charge the 
State with a puritanical bias against gambling. Religion had 
nothing to do with anti-gaming legislation; for the State 
both tolerates and enforces wager-contracts, when they are 
the result of mature deliberation, sufficiently evidenced, and, 
as in the case of life-assurance, insurance against fire, and 
shipwreck, &c., free from the suspicion of wild intoxication. 

The State has prohibited certain sports because they are 
demoralising, e.g. prize-fighting ; and others because they 
are cruel without being useful, e.g. cock-fighting, bear-bait- 
ing, bull -fights, &c. Angling it regards as useful, and 
therefore does not condemn it, although it combines cruelty 
mth the lowest form of lying. Agitations are from time 
to time set on foot for the purpose of putting down fox- 
hunting on similar grounds. But, fortunately, the magni- 
ficent effects of this manly sport on the physique of the race 
are too palpable to admit of its suppression. Pigeon-shooting 
is a very different matter. Chess never seems to have fallen 
under the ban of the law; but billiards, for some reason 
which I cannot discover, has always been carefully super- 
vised by the State. 



II.] The Limits of Liberty. Sy 

Coming to the fir).e arts, they all of them seem to be re- 
garded by the legislature as probable incentives to low sen- 
suality. Architecture is the solitary exception. Even music, 
which would seem to approach nearer to divine perfection 
and purity than any other earthly thing, is carefully hedged 
about by law ; possibly, however, this is on account of its 
dangerous relation to poetry, when the two are wedded in 
song. When we come to the arts of sculpture, of painting 
(and its allies, printing, drawing, photography, &c.), of lite- 
rature (poetry and prose), of the drama, and of dancing, 
we are bound to admit that in the absence of State-control 
they are apt to run to licentiousness. But whether it is wise 
of society, which has been compelled to abstain from inter- 
ference with sexual irregularity, to penalise that which is 
suspected of leading to it, is an interesting point. Fornica- 
tion in itself is no longer even a misdemeanour in this 
country. The Act 23 & 24 Vict. c. 32 applies only to con- 
spiracy to induce a woman to commit fornication ; ' provided,' 
as Mr. Justice Stephen surmises, ' that an agreement between 
a man and a woman to commit fornication is not a con- 
spiracy.' At the same time, whatever we may think of these 
State efforts to encourage and bolster up chastity by legis- 
lation, it is not quite honest to ignore or misrepresent the 
State motive. Monogamy is not the outcome of religious asce- 
ticism, "VYe have only to read the Koran or the Old Testament 
to see that polygamy and religion can be on very good terms. 
The highest civilisations yet known are based on the mono- 
gamic principle ; and anyone who realises the effect of the 
system on the children of the community must admit that it 
is a most beneficial one, quite apart from the religious aspect. 
Whether the action of the State conduces to this result is quite 
another question. All I assert is that the State is actuated by 
a most excellent motive. 

The first observation on the whole history of this kind of 
legislation is that it has been a gigantic failure. That is to 
say, it has not diminished the evils aimed at in the smallest 
degree. It has rather increased them. It has crabbed and 
stunted the fine arts, and thereby vulgarised them. By its 



88 A Plea for Liberty. [ii. 

rough and clumsy classifications it has crushed out the appeals 
of Art to the best feelings of human natui-e, and it has diverted 
what would have been pure and wholesome into other chan- 
nels. The man who does not see every emotion of the human 
soul reflected and glorified in nature's drama around him must 
be a poor prosaic thing indeed. But we need not go to nature 
for what has lately been termed suggestiveness. We need not 
stray beyond the decorative art of dress, which seems to have 
exercised a special fascination over the sentimental Herrick. 
The logical outcome of systematic repression of sensual sug- 
gestiveness is State-regulated dress. Something like this has 
often been attempted. In England, during the thirteenth and 
two following centuries, dress was both regulated by Act of 
Parliament and cursed from the pulpit. Eccleston mentions 
how Serlo d'Abon, after preaching before Henry I on the sin- 
fulness of beards and long hair, coolly drew a huge pair of 
scissors from his pocket after the sermon, and, taking ad- 
vantage of the efiect he had produced, went from seat to seat, 
mercilessly cropping the king himself and the whole congre- 
gation. The same writer, speaking of the Early English 
period, tells us that ' long toes were not entirely abandoned 
till Henry YII, notwithstanding many a cursing by the clergy, 
as well as severe legal penalties upon their makers.' I am 
afraid neither the cursing of the clergy nor the penalties of 
the law have had the desired effect, for we must remember 
that it was not the gold nets and curled ringlets and gauze 
wings worn at each side of the female head, nor the jewelled 
stomachers, which were the peculiar objects of the aversion of 
State and Church, but the sensualising effect of all over-re- 
finement in the decoration of the body. 

If there is one thing more difficult than another, it is to say 
where the line should be drawn between legitimate body- 
decoration and meretricious adornment. When art- critics like 
Schlegel are of opinion that the nude figure is far less allec- 
tive than carefully arranged drapery, it is surely the height of 
blind faith to entrust the State and its blundering machinery 
to lay down the laws of propriety in the matter of dress. 
What we should think indecent in this country is not thought 



II.] The Limits of Liberty. 89 

indecent among the Zulus, and since the whole question is as 
to the effect of certain costumes on certain persons, and since 
those persons are the general public in any particular country, 
one would imagine that the proper course to adopt would be 
to leave the decision upon particular cases, as they crop up, to 
that public. The public may be a bad judge or a biassed 
judge, but at least it is a more suitable judge than a lumbering 
State, working on general principles vaguer than a London 
fog. 

Again, recent modern attempts to 'purify' literature have 
brought the whole crusade into derision, and made us the 
laughing-stock of Europe. Yet all has been done with the 
best intentions — even the prosecution of the sellers of Boc- 
caccio's Decameron. 

But there are moral questions in which the State concerns 
itself, which do not fall under the heads of games, sports, nor 
fine arts, such as drinking, opium-eating, tobacco-smoking, 
and the use of other stimulants. These indulgences and arti- 
ficial aids to sensual gratification have been and still are re- 
gulated and harassed by the State. Nor is it so long ago that 
the memory of man runneth not, since our own Government 
made stringent rules as to the number of meals to be eaten by 
the several grades of society. The Roman law actually speci- 
fied the number of courses at each meal. An ancient English 
writer refers with disgust to the then new-fangled cookery 
which was coming into vogue in his day, ' all brenning like 
wild-fire.^ But I have yet to learn that gluttony is on the 
decrease. And we have it on the highest medical authority 
that more deaths and more diseases can be traced to over- 
eating than to over-drinking, even in this tipphng country. 
Nor have the laws enacted against sexual irregularities from 
time immemorial up to this day diminished, much less stamped 
out, the evil. We empty the casinos only to fill the streets, 
and we clear the streets only to increase the number and de- 
teriorate the quality of houses of ill-fame. And during both 
processes we open the door to official black-mailing. The 
good old saying that you cannot make people moral by Act of 
Parliament has been, and still is, disregarded, but not with 
8 



90 A Flea for Liberty, [ii. 

impunity. Surely the State, which has conspicuously failed 
in every single department of moralisation by force, may be 
wisely asked in future to mind its own business. 

But is it not possible to ^-:l our eyes too persistently and 
fanatically on the State % Do we not suffer from other inter- 
ferences quite as odious as the tyrannies of the Effective 
Majority? Here is what Mr. Pickard said on the Eight- 
hours question at the Miners' Conference at Birmingham 
some months since. Somebody had pointed out that the 
Union could themselves force short hours upon the em- 
ployers, if need be, without calling upon the legislature. 
' If,' he replied, ' no bad result is to follow trade-union effort, 
how is it possible for a bad result to follow the same arrange- 
ment brought about by legislation % ' Commenting on this 
with approval, Justice, the organ of the Social Democratic 
Federation, says : — 

This is a question which Mr. John Morley and the rest of the politicians who 
prate about the need for shorter working hours, while opposing the penal- 
ising of over- work, should set themselves to answer. Obviously there is no 
answer that will justify their position. If the limitation of the hours of 
labour is wrong in principle, and mischievous, harmful, and destructive of 
our national prosperity, it is just as much so whether effected by trade-union 
effort or by legislation. 

There is a soul of truth in this. Of course we may point 
out firstly that the passing of a Bill for the purpose is no 
proof that the majority of the persons primarily affected 
really desire it, whereas the enforcement of the system by 
trade-unionism is strong evidence that they do : and secondly, 
that the legislature cannot effect these objects without simul- 
taneously creating greater evils owing to the necessary opera- 
tion of State machinery. But I venture to say that the 
central truth of Mr. Pickard's remark lies a good deal deeper 
than this. I think we individualists are apt to fix our eyes 
too exclusively upon the State. Doubtless it is the greatest 
transgressor. But after all, when analysed, it is only a com- 
bination of numerous persons in a certain area claiming to 
dictate to others in the same area what they shall do, and 
what they shall not do. These numerous persons we call the 
effective majority. It is precisely in the position of a cricket- 



II.] The Limits of Liberty. 91 

club, or a religious corporation, or any other combination of 
men bound together by rules. At the present moment in this 
country a bishop is being persecuted by the majority of his 
co-religionists because he performs certain trifling rites. I 
would ask the Church of England whether, in its oiun in- 
terest, — in the interest of the majority of its own members, — it 
would not be wiser to repeal these socialistic rules against 
practices perfectly harmless in themselves. Last year there 
was a cause celehre tried before the Jockey Club. Quite 
apart from the outside interference of the State, this club can 
and does sanction its own laws most effectively. It can ruin 
any trainer or jockey whenever it chooses, that is to say, 
whenever he violates the laws it has made. These laws, for- 
tunately, are about as good as human nature is capable of, and 
those who suffer under them richly deserve their fate. But it 
might be otherwise. And even in this exemplary code there 
is an element of despotism which might be dispensed with. 
A jockey must not be an owner. Very good: the object is 
clear, and the intention is excellent. Of course a jockey 
ought not to expose himself to the temptation of riding an- 
other man's horse so as to conduce to the success of his own. 
No honourable man would yield to the temptation. On the 
other hand, few owners would trust a jockey whose own 
horse was entered for the same race. Now I venture to 
submit that it would be better to leave the matter entirely 
to the jockey's own choice, and to reserve the penalty for the 
occasion where there is convincing evidence that the jockey 
has abused his trust. A jockey charged with pulling, and 
afterwards found interested as owner or part-owner or backer 
of another horse in the same race, would then be dealt with 
under the Jockey Club law, not before. I would strongly 
advise a jockey to keep clear of ownership, and even of 
betting (on any race in which his services are engaged), but 
I would not make an offence out of that which in itself is not 
an offence, but which merely opens the door to temptation. 
This has nothing whatever to do with the State or with 
State law. It is entirely a question of what may, broadly 
speaking, be called Lynch law. I have recently examined 



92 A Plea for Liberty. [ir. 

the rules of some of the principal London clubs, and I find 
that they are, many of them, largely socialistic. Unless I 
am a member, I do not complain. I merely ask whether the 
members themselves would not do wisely to widen their 
liberties. The committee of a certain club had recently a 
long and stormy discussion as to whether billiards should be 
permitted on Sundays. In nineteen out of twenty clubs the 
game is disallowed. The individualists predominated, and 
the result is that those who do not want to play can refrain : 
they are not compelled to play. Those who wish to play are 
not compelled to refrain. 

I can imagine a people with the State reduced to a shadow, — 
a government attenuated to the administration of a very 
tolerant criminal code, — and yet so deeply imbued with 
socialism in all their minor combinations as to be a nation 
of petty despots : a country where every social clique enforces 
its own notions of Mrs. Grundy's laws, and where every club 
tyrannises over its own members, fixing their politics and 
religion, the limits of stakes, the hours of closing, and a count- 
less variety of other matters. There is or was a club in 
London where no meat is served on IVidays. There are 
several in which card-players are limited to half-crown 
points. There are many more where one card game is per- 
mitted and another prohibited. Whist is allowed at the 
Carlton, but not poker. Then again the etiquette of the 
professions is in many cases more irksome and despotic than 
the law of the land. Medical men have been boycotted for 
accepting small fees from impecunious patients. A barrister 
who should accept a brief from a client without the inter- 
mediary expense of a solicitor would sink to swim no more : 
although the solicitor's services might be absolutely worthless. 
Consider also the rules of the new Trade-unionism. I need not 
go into these. The freedom, not only of voluntary members, 
but of citizens outside the ring, is utterly trampled under foot. 
And this brings us back to Mr. Pickard and the soul of truth in 
his argument. I afiirm that a people might utterly abolish 
and extirpate the State, and yet remain steeped to the lips in 
socialism of the most revolting type. And I think, as I have 



II.] The Limits of Liberty, 93 

said, it is time for those of us who value freedom and detest 
despotism, from whatever quarter it emanates, to ask ourselves 
what are the true principles of Lynch law. Suppose, for 
example, there was no State to appeal to for protection 
against a powerful ruffian, what should I do ? Most certainly 
I should combine with others no stronger than myself, and 
overpower the ruffian by superior brute-force. Ought I to do 
this ? Ought I not rather to allow the survival of the fittest 
to improve the physique of the race — even at my expense? 
If not, then ought I to combine with others against the free- 
dom of the sly pick-pocket, who through his superior dex- 
terity and agihty and cool courage prevails over me, and 
appropriates my watch, without any exercise of brute force ? 
Ai-e not these qualities useful to the race ? Then why should 
I conspire with others against the harmless sneak who puts 
chicory in his coffije ? If I do not like his coffee, I can go 
and buy somebody else's? If he chooses to offer me stone 
for bread at fourpence a pound, and if I am foolish enough to 
take it at the price, I shall learn to be wiser in future, or else 
perish of starvation and rid the race of a fool. Then again 
why should I not conspire? Or are there some sorts of com- 
bination which are good, and properly called co-operation, 
while others are bad, and properly called conspiracy? Let us 
look a little into this matter of combination, — this arraying of 
Quantity against Quality. 

Hooks and eyes are very useful. Hooks are useless ; eyes 
are useless. Yet in combination they are useful. This is 
co-operation. Where you have division of labour, and con- 
sequent differentiation of function, and eventually of struc- 
ture, there is co-operation. Certain tribes of ants have 
working members and fighting members. The military caste 
are unable to collect food, which is provided for them by the 
other members of the community, in return for which they 
devote themselves to the defence of the whole society. But 
for these soldiers the society would perish. If either class 
perished, the other class would perish with it. It is the old 
fable of the belly and the limbs. 

Division of labour does not always result in differentiation 



94 ^ Plea for Liberty, [it. 

of structure. In the case of bees and many other insects we 
know that it does. Among mammals beyond the well- 
marked structural division into male and female, the ten- 
dency to fixed structural changes is very slight. In races 
where caste prevails, the tendency is more marked. Even 
in England, where caste is extinct, it has been observed 
among the mining population of Northumbria. And the 
notorious short-sightedness of Germans has been set down to 
compulsory book-study. As a general rule, we may neglect 
this effect of co-operation among human beings. The fact 
remains that the organised effort of lOO individuals is a very 
great deal more effective than the sum of the efforts of lOO 
unorganised individuals. Co-operation is an unmixed good. 
And the Ishmaelitic anarchy of the bumble-bee is uneconomic. 
Hostility to the principle of co-operation (upon which society is 
founded) is usually attributed by the ignorant to philosophical 
anarchists, while socialists never weary of pointing to the 
glorious triumphs of co-operation, and claiming them for 
socialism. Whenever a number of persons join hands with 
the object of effecting a purpose otherwise unattainable, we 
have what is tantamount to a new force, — the force of com- 
bination ; and the persons so combining, regarded as a single 
body, may be called by a name, — any name : a Union, an 
Association, a Club, a Company, a Corporation, a State. I do 
not say all these terms denote precisely the same thing, but 
they all connote co-operation. 

Let the State be now abolished for the purposes of this 
discussion. How do we stand ? We have by no means 
abolished all the clubs and companies in which citizens find 
themselves grouped and interbanded. There they all are, just 
as before, — nay, there are a number of new ones, suddenly 
sprung up out of the debris of the old State. Here are some 
eighty men organised in the form of a cricket-club. They 
may not pitch the ball as they like, but only in accordance 
with rigid laws. They elect a king or captain, and they bind 
themselves to obey him in the field. A member is told off 
to field at long-on, although he may wish to field at point. 
He must obey the despot. 



II.] The Limits of Liberty. 95 

Here is a ring of horsemen. They ride races. They back 
their own horses. Disputes arise about fouling, or perhaps 
the course is a curve and some rider takes a short cut ; or 
the weights of the riders are unequal, and the heavier rider 
claims to equalise the weights. All such matters are laid 
before a committee, and rules are drawn up by which all the 
members of the little racing club pledge themselves to be 
bound. The club grows : other riding or racing men join it 
or adopt its rules. At last, so good are its laws that they are 
accepted by all the racing fraternity in the island, and all 
racing disputes are settled by the rules of the Jockey Club. 
And even the judges of the land defer to them, and refer 
points of racing law to the club. 

Here again is a knot of whalers on the beach of a stormy 
sea. Each trembles for the safety of his own vessel. He 
would give something to be rid of his own uneasiness. All 
his eggs are in one basket. He would willingly distribute 
them over many baskets. He offers to take long odds that 
his own vessel is lost. He repeats the offer till the long odds 
cover the value of his ship and cargo, and perhaps profits and 
time. ' Now/ says he, ' I am comfortable : it is true, I forfeit 
a small percentage ; but if my whole craft goes to the bottom 
I lose nothing.' He laughs and sings, while the others go 
croaking about the sands, shaking their heads and looking 
fearfully at the breakers. At last they all follow his example, 
and the nett result is a Mutual Marine Insurance Society. 
After a while they lay the odds, not with their own members 
only, but with others ; and the risk being over-estimated 
(naturally at first), they make large dividends. But now 
difficulties arise. The captain of a whaler has thrown cargo 
overboard in a heavy sea. The owner claims for the loss. 
The company declines to pay, on the ground that the loss was 
voluntarily caused by the captain and not by the hand of 
God or the king's enemies ; and that there would be no limit 
to jettison if the claim were allowed. Other members meet 
with similar difficulties, and finally rules are made which 
provide for all known contingencies. And when any dispute 
arises, the chosen umpire (whether it be a mutual friend, or 



g6 A Plea for Liberty. [ir. 

an agora-full of citizens, or a department of State^ or any other 
person or body of persons) refers to the common practice and 
precedents so far as they apply. In other words, the rules of 
the Insurance Society are the law of the land. In spite of the 
State, this is so to-day to a considerable extent ; I may say, in 
all matters which have not been botched and cobbled by statute. 

There is another class of club springing out of the altruistic 
sentiment. An old lady takes compassion on a starving cat 
(no' uncommon sight in the West End of London after the 
Season). She puts a saucer of milk and some liver on the 
door-step. She is soon recognised as a benefactress, and 
the cats for a mile round swarm to her threshold. The 
saucers increase and multiply, and the liver is an item in her 
butcher's bill. The strain is too great to be borne single- 
handed. She issues a circular appeal, and she is surprised to 
find how many are willing to contribute a fair share, although 
their sympathy shrivels up before an unfair demand. They 
are willing to be taxed 'pro rata, but they will not bear the 
burden of other people's stinginess. ' Let the poor cats bear 
it rather,' they say ; ' what is everybody's business is nobody's 
business. It is very sad, but it cannot be helped. If we keep 
one cat, hundreds will starve ; so what is the use ? ' But 
when once the club is started, nobody feels the burden ; the 
Cats' Home is built and endowed, and all goes well. Hospitals, 
infirmaries, alms-houses, orphanages, spring up all round. At 
first they are reckless and indiscriminate, and become the 
prey of impostors and able-bodied vagrants. Then rules are 
framed ; the Charity Organisation Society co-ordinates and 
directs public benevolence. And these rules of prudence and 
economy are copied and adopted, in many respects, by those 
who administer the State Poor Law. 

Then we have associations of persons who agree on im- 
portant points of science or politics. They wish to make 
others think with them, in order that society may be 
pleasanter and more congenial for themselves. They would 
button-hole every man in the street and argue the question 
out with him, but the process is too lengthy and wearisome. 
They club together, and form such institutions as the British 



II.] The Limits of Liberty, 97 

and Foreign Bible Society, which has spent .3^7,000,000 
in disseminating its literature all over the world. We have 
the Cobden Club, which is slowly and sadly dying of incon- 
sistency after a career of merited success. We have scientific 
societies of all descriptions that never ask or expect a penny 
reward for all their outlay, beyond making other people 
wiser and pleasanter neighbours. 

Finally, we. have societies banded together to do battle 
against rivals on the principle of 'Union is strength.' These 
clubs are defensive or aggressive. The latter class includes 
all trading associations, the object of which is to make profits 
by out-manoeuvering competitors. The former or defensive 
class includes all the political societies formed for the purpose 
of resisting the State, — the most aggressive club in existence. 
Over one hundred of these ' protection societies ' of one sort 
and another are now federated under the hegemony of the 
Liberty and Property Defence League. 

Now we have agreed, for the sake of argument, that the 
State is to be abolished. What is the result? Here are 
Watch Committees formed in the great towns to prevent and 
to ensure against burglars, thieves, and like marauders. How 
they are to be constituted I do not clearly know ; neither do 
I know the limits of their functions. Here, again, is a 
Mutual Inquest Society to provide for the examination of 
dead persons before burial or cremation, in order to make 
murder as unprofitable a business as possible. Here is a 
Vigilance Association sending out detectives for the purpose 
of discovering and lynching the unsocial wretches who know- 
ingly travel in public conveyances with infectious diseases on 
them. Here is a journal supported by consumers for the 
advertisement of adulterating dealers. And here again is a 
filibustering company got up by adventurous traders, of the 
old East Lidia Company stamp, for the purpose of carrying 
trade into foreign countries with or without the consent of 
the invaded parties. Here is a Statistical Society devising 
rules to make it unpleasant for those who evade registration 
and the census, and offering inducement to all who furnish 
the required information. What sort of organisation (if any) 



98 A Plea for Liberty. [11. 

will be formed for the enforcement (not necessarily by brute 
force) of contract % Or will there be many such organisations 
dealing with different classes of contract? Will there be 
a Woman's League to boycott any man who has abused the 
confidence of a woman and violated his pledges ? How will 
it try and sanction cases of breach of promise ? 

Above all, how is this powerful company for the defence of 
the country against foreign invaders to be constituted % And 
what safeguards will its members provide against the tyranny 
of the ofiicials'? When a Senator proposed to limit the 
standing army of the United States to three thousand, George 
Washington agreed, on condition that the honourable member 
would arrange that the country should never be invaded by 
more than two thousand. Frankenstein created a monster 
he could not lay. This will be a nut for anarchists of the 
future to crack. 

And now, to revert to the Vigilance Society formed for 
lynching persons who travel about in public places with 
small-pox and scarlatina, what rules will they make for their 
guidance? Suppose they dub every unvaccinated person a 
' focus of infection/ shall we witness the establishment of a 
Vigilance Society to punch the heads of the detectives who 
punch the heads of the 'foci of infection?' Remember we 
have both those societies in full working order to-day. One 
is called the State, and the other is the Anti- Vaccination 
Society. 

The questions which I should wish to ask are chiefly these 
two: — (1) How far may voluntary co-operators invade the 
liberty of others? And what is to prevent such invasion 
under a system of anarchy ? (2) Is compulsory co-operation 
ever desirable? And what form (if any) should such com- 
pulsion take ? 

The existing State is obviously only a conglomeration 
of several large societies which would exist separately or 
collectively in its absence ; if the State were abolished, these 
associations would necessarily spring up out of its ruins, just 
as the nations of Europe sprang out of the ruins of the Roman 
Empire. They would apparently lack the power of com- 



II.] The Limits of Liberty, 99 

pulsion. No one would be compelled to join against his will. 
Take the ordinary case of a gas-lit street. Would a voluntary 
gas-committee be willing to light the street without somehow 
taxing all the dwellers in the street ? If yes, then there is 
inequity. The generous and public-spirited pay for the stingy 
and mean. But if no, then how is the taxing to be accom- 
plished ? And where is the line to be drawn ? If you compel 
a man to pay for lighting the street, when he swears he 
prefers it dark (a householder may really prefer a dark street 
to a light one, if he goes to bed at sunset, and wants the 
traffic to be diverted into other streets to ensure his peace) ; 
then you will compel him to subscribe to the Watch fund, 
though his house is burglar-proof; and to the fire-brigade, 
though his house is fire-proof; and to the prisons as part of 
the plant and tools of the Watch Committee ; and, it may 
logically be urged, to the churches and schools as part also of 
such plant and tools for the prevention of certain crimes. 

Moreover, if you compel him to subscribe for the gas in the 
street, you must make him pay his share of the street itself — 
paving, repairing, and cleansing, and if the street, then the 
highway ; and if the highway, then the railway, and the 
canal, and the bridges, and even the harbours and light- 
houses, and other common apparatus of transport and loco- 
motion. 

If we are not going to compel a citizen to subscribe to 
cowmion benefits, even though he necessarily shares them, 
how are we to remove the injustice of allowing one man to 
enjoy what another has earned ? Some writers ^ are of opinion 
that this and aU similar questions can be settled by an appeal 
to Justice, and that the justice of any particular case can be 
extracted by a dozen jurymen. Now, in all sincerity, I have no 
conception of what is commonly meant by Justice. Happiness 
I know ; welfare I know ; expediency I know. They all mean 
the same thing. We can call it pleasure, or felicity, or by any 
other name. We never ask why it is better to be happy 
than unhappy. We understand pleasure and pain by faculties 

^ See Mr. Spence's contribution to the Symposium on the Land Question, p. 42, 
1890 (T. Fisher Unwin). 

L.oFC. 



lOO A Plea for Liberty, [ii. 

which underlie reason itself. A child knows the meaning 
of stomach-ache long before it knows the meaning of stomach. 
And no philosopher knows it better. Expediency, in the 
sense in which I use the term, has a meaning. Justice has no 
meaning at all : that is to say, it conveys no definite meaning 
to the general understanding. Here is a flat-race about to be 
run between a strong, healthy boy of sixteen and a delicate 
lad of twelve? What says Justice? Are we to handicap 
them ; or are we not ? It is a very simple question, and the 
absolutist ought to furnish us with a simple answer. If he 
says Yes, he will have half the world down upon him as a 
socialist leveller. If he says No, he will have the other half 
down upon him as a selfish brute. But he must choose. 
Lower yet ; — even supposing that Justice has a distinct con- 
notation, and furthermore that it connotes something sublime, 
even then, why should I conform to its dictates 1 Because it 
is a virtue ? Nonsense : because it is expedient. Why should 
I tell the truth ? There is no reason why, except that it is 
expedient for me, as I know from experience. There is no 
baser form of lying than fly-fishing. Is it wrong ? No. Why 
not? Because I do not ask the fishes to trust me in the 
future. That is why. 

I have said that Justice is too vague a guide to the solution 
of political questions. We are told that, when the question is 
asked. What is fair and just between man and man? 'you 
can get a jury of twelve men to give a unanimous verdict.' 
And ' that by reasoning from what is fair between man and 
man we can pass to what is fair between one man and several, 
and from several, to all : and that this method, which is the 
method of all science, of reasoning from the particular to the 
general, from the simple to the complex, does gives us reliable 
information as to what should be law^.' 

The flaw in this chain of reasoning is in the assumption 
that, because you can get a unanimous verdict in the majority 
of cases as to what is fair between man and man, therefore 
you can get a true verdict. Twelve sheep will unanimously 



Symposium on the Land 



II.] The Limits of Liberty. loi 

jump through a gap in the hedge round an old quarry, if one 
of them will but give the lead. I do not believe that a jury 
of twelve philosophers, or of twelve members of Parliament, 
or of twelve judges of the realm, or of twelve anybodies, could 
decide correctly what is just and right between man and man 
in any one of a thousand cases which could be stated without 
deviating from the path of everyday life. And the more they 
knew, the less likely they would be to agree. 

The same writer thinks the intelligence of the 'ordinary 
elector' quite sufficient to tell him that ' it would be unjust to 
take from a man by force and without compensation a farm 
which he had legally and honestly bought.' Well, this is not 
a very complex case : and yet I doubt whether ' the ordinary 
elector' could be trusted even here to see justice, and to do it. 
This recipe for making good laws forcibly reminds me of an 
old recipe for catching a bird : ' Put a pinch of salt on its tail.' 
I remember trying it, — but that is some years ago. I grant 
that, having once got at a sound method of deciding what is 
fair and right between man and man, you can easily proceed 
from the particular to the general, and so learn how to make 
good laws. Yes, but first catch your hare. First show us what 
is fair between man and man. That is the whole problem. 
That is my difficulty, and it is not removed by telling me you 
can get a dozen fellows together who will agree about the 
answer. 

Take a very simple case. X and Y appoint me arbitrator 
in their dispute. There is no allegation of malfeasance on 
either side. Both ask for justice, and are ready to accord it, 
but they cannot agree as to what is justice in the case. It 
appears that X bought a pony bona fide and paid for it. That 
is admitted. It further appears that the pony was stolen the 
night before out of F's paddock. It is hard on Y to lose his 
pony — it is hard on X to lose his money. To divide the loss 
is hard on both. Now how can Justice tell me the true solu- 
tion ? I must fall back on expediency. As a rule, I argue, 
the title to goods should be valid only when derived from the 
owner. But surely an exception should be made in the case 
of a bona fide purchaser : 'for it is expedient that the buyer, 



I02 A Plea for Liberty. [ii. 

by taking proper precautions, may at all events be secure 
of his purchase : otherwise all commerce between man and 
man would soon be at an end.' These are the words of Sir 
William Blackstone, but they are good enough for me. l^here- 
fore (and not for any reason based on justice) I should feel 
disposed to decide that the pony should remain the property 
of the purchaser. Eut on further reflection, I should bethink 
me how extremely easy it would be for two men to conspire 
together to steal a pony under such a law. One of them leads 
the pony out of the field by night, sells it to his colleague, 
gives him a receipt for the money, and disappears. Is this 
farce to destroy the owner's title ? What am I to do ? Jus- 
tice entirely deserts me. I reflect again. There seems to be 
something ' fishy' about a night sale in a lane. Now had the 
purchaser bought the pony at some public place at a reason- 
able hour when people are about, there would have been less 
ground for suspicion of foul play. How would it be then, I 
ask myself, to lay down the general rule that, when the deal 
takes place at any regular public place and during specified 
hours, the purchaser's title should hold good : but when the 
deal takes place under other circumstances, the original owner's 
title should stand % This would probably be something like 
the outcome of the reflections of a simple untutored mind ac- 
tuated by common sense. But it is also very like the law of 
England. 

If I appeal for guidance to the wise, the best they can do is 
to refer me to the writings of the lawyers, where I shall find 
out all about market overt and a good many other ' wise re- 
gulations by which the law hath secured the right of the pro- 
prietor of personal chattels from being divested, so far as is 
consistent with that other necessary policy that honafide pur- 
chasers in a fair, open, and regular manner should not be 
afterwards put to difficulties by reason of the previous knavery 
of the seller ^.' But we have not got to the bottom of the 
problem yet. There are chattels and chattels. Tables have 
legs, but cannot walk: horses can. Thereby hangs a tale. 
Consequently when I think I have mastered all these ' wise 

^ Blackstone. 



II.] The Limits of Liberty, 103 

regulations,' I am suddenly knocked off my stool of superior 
knowledge by a couple of elderly statutes — ^ P. & M. c. 7 
and 31 Eliz. c. \% — whereby special provision is made for 
horse-dealing. It is enacted that— 

The horses shall be openly exposed in the time of such fair or market for 
one whole hour together, between ten in the morning and sunset, in the 
public place used for such sales, and not in any private yard or stable ; and 
shall afterwards be brought by both the vendor and vendee to the book- 
keeper of such fair or market, who shall enter down the price, colour, and 
marks of such horse, with the name, additions, and abode of such vendee and 
vendor, the latter being properly attested. And even such sale shall not take 
away the property of the owner, if within six months after the horse is stolen, 
he put in his claim before some magistrate where the horse shall be found ; 
and within forty days more prove such his property, by the oath of two wit- 
nesses, and tender to the person in possession such price as he bona fide paid 
for the horse in market overt. And in case any of the points before men- 
tioned be not observed, such sale is to be utterly void, and the owner shall 
not lose his property ; and at any distance of time may seize or bring an 
action for his horse, wherever he happens to find him. 

And further refinements on these precautions have since 
been made. 

I do not say that we need approve of all these safeguards 
and rules, but I do say that they testify to a perception by 
the legislature of the complexity and difficulty of the 
question. And furthermore, if anybody offers to decide such 
cases off-hand on general principles, and at the same time 
to do justice, he must be a bold man. For my part, the 
more I look into the law as it is, the more do I see in it of 
wisdom (not unadulterated of course) drawn from experience. 
The little obstacles which have from time to time shadowed 
themselves upon my mind as difficulties in the way of apply- 
ing clear and unqualified general rules to the solution of all 
social disputes, are brought into fuller light, and I perceive 
more and more clearly how hopeless, nay, how impossible it 
is to deduce the laws of social morality from broad general 
principles ; and how absolutely necessary it is to obtain them 
by induction from the myriads of actual cases which the race 
has had to solve somehow or other during the last half-dozen 
millenniums. 

I regard law-making as by no means an easy task when 
based on expediency. On the contrary, I think it difficult, 



I04 ^ Plea for Liberty. [ii. 

but practicable : wbereas to deduce good laws from the prin- 
ciple of Justice is impossible. 

One word more about Justice. I have said that to most 
people the term is absolutely meaningless. To those who 
have occasional glimmerings, it conveys two distinct and 
even opposed meanings — sometimes one, sometimes the other. 
And it has a third meaning, which is definite enough, but 
merely negative ; in which sense it connotes the elimination 
of partiality. I fail to see hoAV any political question can be 
settled by that. That the State should be no respecter of 
persons, that it should decide any given case in precisely the 
same way, whether the litigants happen to be A and B or 
G and D, may be a valuable truth, without casting a ray of 
light on the right and wrong of the question. 

In this negative sense of the term I will venture to define 
Justice as the Algebra of Judgments. It deals in terms not 
of Dick, Tom, and Harry, but of X, F, and Z. Eegarded in 
this light, Justice may properly be described as blind, a 
quality which certainly cannot be predicated of that Justice 
which carefully examines the competitors in life's arena and 
handicaps them accordingly. Consider the countless ques- 
tions which Impartiality is incompetent to answer. Ought a 
father to be compelled to contribute to the maintenance of 
his natural children % The only answer we can get from 
Impartiality is that, if one man is forced, all men should 
be forced. Should a man be permitted to sell himself into 
slavery for life ? Should the creditors of an insolvent rank 
in order of priority, or 'pro ratal Suppose a notorious 
card-sharper and a gentleman of unblemished character are 
publicly accused, untruly accused, of conspiring together to 
cheat, should they obtain equal damages for the libel? 

To all these questions Impartiality is dumb, or replies 
oracularly, 'What is right for one is right for all.' And 
that throws- no light on the subject. 

In short, it is easy to underrate the difficulty of finding 
out what is fair and right between man and man. To me 
it seems that this is the whole of the difiiculty. And 
although I think that this can best be overcome by an 



II.] The Limits of Liberty, 105 

appeal to expediency, I must not be understood as con- 
tending that each particular case must be decided on its 
merits. We must be guided, as we are guided in our own 
personal conduct, by middle principles which have stood the 
test of time and experience. Do not steal. Do not Ke. It 
is by the gradual discovery of similar middle principles by 
induction from the disputes of everyday life that we shall 
some day find ourselves in possession of true and useful 
guides through the labyrinth of legislation and politics. 

To sum up ; I have tried to show that the right course for the 
State to adopt towards its own citizens— Group-morals — 
cannot be discovered by deduction from any abstract prin- 
ciples, such as Justice or Liberty ; any more than individual 
morals can be deduced from some underlying law of Virtue. 
The rules of conduct by which States should be guided are 
intelligible canons based on centuries of experience, very 
much like the rules by which our own private lives are 
guided ; not absolutely trustworthy, but better than no 
general rules at all. They are usually described as the laws 
of the land, and in so far as the expressed laws really do reflect 
the nomological laws actually at work, these laws stand in the 
same relation to the State as private resolutions stand to the 
individual citizen. In law, as in all other inductive sciences, 
we proceed from the particular to the general. The judge 
decides a new case on its merits, the decision serves as a guide 
when a similar case arises ; the ratio decidendi is extracted, 
and we have a general statement ; these generalisations are 
themselves brought under higher generalisations by jurists 
and judges, and perhaps Parliament ; and finally we find our- 
selves in the presence of laws or State-morals as general as 
those cardinal virtues by which most of us try to arrange our 
lives. That the generalisations made by the legislature are 
usually false generalisations is a proposition which, I submit, 
is capable of proof and of explanation. It is wise to obey the 
laws, firstly, because otherwise we come into conflict with a 
stronger power than ourselves ; secondly, because in the great 
majority of cases, it is our enlightened interest to do so ; the 
welfare of individual citizens coinciding as a rule with the 



io6 A Plea for Liberty, [ii. 

welfare of the race, and tending to do so more and more. 
History shows that (probably as a means to that end ; though 
of this we cannot speak positively) the State's sphere of action 
is a diminishing one — that as it moves forward, it tends to shed 
function after function, until only a few are left. Whether 
these duties will pass into the hands of voluntary corporations 
at any time is a question of the greatest interest ; but it is 
observable that the latest functions remaining to the State 
are those which are most rigorously performed. And this 
seems to point to the future identity of the State (in the 
sense of the sovereign power) with the widest voluntary 
association of citizens — an association based on some common 
interest of the widest extent. Thus it is probable that even 
now an enormous majority of persons in this country would 
voluntarily forego the right of killing or robbing their neigh- 
bours on condition of being guaranteed against similar treat- 
ment by others. If so, the voluntary society which Anarchy 
would evolve and the State which ancient Socialism has 
evolved, tend in the long run to be one and the same thing. 
The State will cease to coerce, because coercion will no longer 
be required. 

WOEDSWORTH DONISTHORPE. 



III. 

LIBERTY FOB LABOUB. 



GEORGE HOWELL. 



Ill 

LIBERTY FOR LABOUR. 

Few subjects have more profoundly exercised the minds of 
philosophic thinkers than the question as to the rightful sphere 
of law, in its application to daily life and labour. It is, 
indeed, an old, old tale, the threads of which are to be found 
running through all the centuries of British history, from 
Saxon times to our own days, in this year of grace, 1890. The 
warp of legal enactment was laid in the Ordinances of the 
Guilds, the weft being skilfully woven in by the shuttle of 
legislation in various reigns, until it produced the fabric 
known as ' Statute Law.' The earlier conception of the sphere 
of law was the restraint of lawlessness and brute force. Its 
second development was the limitation of power and authority, 
which had been used to limit liberty, and restrain individual 
freedom. It has taken long ages to repeal the Acts passed for 
the suppression of personal liberty, and to restrict within 
reasonable limits the exercise of authority created by statute. 
But liberty and lawlessness should not be confounded, one 
with the other; they are separate and distinct, legally and 
morally. Individual liberty is consistent with law and order, 
and the ideal of a State is reached in proportion to the in- 
dividual liberty attained, and the order which is maintained, 
in the commonwealth of a free people. State regulation was 
the third step in legislative achievement, but it developed 
early, and ran concurrently with the attempts to restrain 
individual liberty ; with this difference, however, that the con- 
ception of regulation originated with the governed rather than 
with the governors, as the Ordinances of the Guilds testify. 
The work of succeeding generations has been to undo the 



no A Plea for Liberty, [in. 

mischief of State regulation ; but the present century has been 
distinguished also by the substitution of other kinds of regu- 
lation in the place of that repealed. 

It cannot be denied that individual liberty necessitates 
regulation, which, after all, means restraint. Each person in 
the State must be restrained from infringing upon, or inter- 
fering with, the liberty of another, all being equally protected 
in the exercise of their undoubted rights, constitutional and 
moral. But State Law, or legislation, cannot reach, nor should 
it reach, all the details, trivialities, or incidents of private life. 
Above and beyond law, there exist mutual restraints, for 
mutual protection, developed by civilised communities, and 
embodied in what may be called a code of Social Laws, all the 
more powerful and exacting, perhaps, by reason of the fact 
that they are unwritten laws, similar in one respect to what is 
termed the Common Law. ' Society ' is a law unto itself, as 
the ' family ' is a law unto itself. There are, however, breaches 
of the law which neither the family nor society can reach and 
adequately punish. The Common Law, and the Statute Law, 
are designed to reach and punish offences not effectually dealt 
with in any other way. How far these should operate and 
extend, is a matter of opinion, upon which there is great 
divergence among all classes. There is, however, a general 
consensus of opinion that law, properly so called, should enter 
as little as possible into the domain of every-day life. In the 
privacies of ordinary life there is a limit which instinct seems 
to indicate as a kind of boundary line, beyond which legis- 
lation should not extend. The tendency has hitherto been to 
stop short at such point, or to deal cautiously with any and 
every proposal to go beyond it. Recently, the tendency to 
extend the boundary has developed enormously, to such a 
degree, in fact, that it is doubtful whether, in the opinion 
of many, there should be any boundary line at all. The efface- 
ment of the individual seems to be their aim, the merging of 
the inian into the niasB ; the fusion of atoms into a solid con- 
crete body, moved and movable only by the State. 

The principal object of the following pages is to deal with 
law as applied to labour, or the interference by the State with 



III.] Liberty for Labotir, 1 1 1 

the individual man in tlie exercise of his skill, intelligence, 
faculties, and strength, for the purpose of getting his living, 
increasing his store, and promoting his own and his family's 
prosperity and happiness in his own way, so long as he does 
not interfere, de facto^ with his neighbour. To the latter, as a 
matter of fact and of argument, reference will be more specifi- 
cally made further on. In order to understand the question in 
all its bearings, it is essential to trace the origin and growth 
of legislative interference, the roots of which lie deeply buried 
in the past. The tree has been lopped here and there, but 
while its branches have been cut, the roots have expanded, 
and these have sprung up, with even greater luxuriance, bearing 
fruit after its kind, and sometimes of a kind which seemed 
foreign to its nature and the character of the soil out of which 
it grew. 

I. The earlier interference with labour was by mutual 
consent and arrangement in the old guilds, for the mutual 
protection of its members, each being responsible for each, and 
all for all, as regards conduct, support, protection, and advance- 
ment. The guild was also responsible to the State, the frank- 
pledge being accepted in all cases. As society expanded, and 
newer developments arose which could not be dealt with by 
the associated members in the guild, ordinances were enacted, 
by which the members were bound to abide, whether or not 
they were within the district in which the guild existed and 
exercised jurisdiction. Those earlier guilds subsequently 
expanded into fraternities, generally composed of similar 
classes, each class or fraternity having objects in common, for 
the benefit of all. These again extended in their turn, until 
we find associated guilds, or fraternities of the same class or 
classes, with ramifications in various parts of the country, and 
sometimes even in other countries, in different parts of the 
world. As time wore on there arose separate guilds of 
distinctive classes, the political element finding a place in their 
deliberations and determinations. The earlier social guild 
was not restricted to a class, or to a section. The Merchants' 
Guild was an olF-shoot, sectional and restrictive. The 
Burghers' Guild contested for political rights ; they sought for 



112 A Plea for Liberty, [in. 

equal privileges with the feudal barons in the government 
of the townships. From these sprang into existence the 
Craft-Guilds, in which the workmen sought equal rights with 
the merchants and burghers of the towns. 

Those guilds were essentially protective. They sought the 
welfare of the particular individuals of which the guild was 
composed, or of the section or class to which they belonged ; 
and they sought to perpetuate their advantages, their craft- 
rights, and their privileges as distinctively as the peerage does 
by descent of title, of lands, and of other entailed or devised 
property incident thereto. The guilds were a law unto them- 
selves, but they enforced their ordinances and guild statutes 
upon others not in their own circle. Many of their objects 
were good, and were excellently administered ; but they had 
in them the seeds of decay, even at their birth. The very life- 
, germ of their existence was exclusion ; and they grew more and 
I more exclusive as time went on, until they became little less 
I than mere corporate trading associations, whose object was the 
1 monopoly of power and authority over all the crafts of the 
\ time, and the enjoyment of all the privileges and immunities 
t which that power and authority gave, quite irrespective of all 
\ and sundry outside the guild. Socialistic in their origin and 
\ birth, these fraternities degenerated into intolerable monopolies, 
cliques^ and factions, even to the defiance of law, order, and 
custom, being often their own avengers in case of wrong, or 
supposed wrong, wresting privileges where they could, and 
purchasing them when they could not, until their final sup- 
pression in the reign of the Tudor s. 

By such institutions, under what may be described as 
primeval conditions, in the very infancy of society and of 
industry in this country, the ordinances and statutes respect- 
ing labour were first formulated and promulgated. As time 
wore on, and the conditions of society and of life changed, 
those ordinances did not fit the circumstances of the times. 
They were not expansive enough ; there was no elasticity in 
them. It is, indeed, extremely doubtful whether the industry 
of modern England could have developed to any large extent 
under the guild system. The guilds were too clannish to be 



III.] Liberty for Labour. 113 

national, and too limited in their scope to be cosmopolitan. 
When they were instituted they doubtless fulfilled their 
mission. They enlarged the family and its responsibilities to 
groups of families, then to a class. But diversified interests 
arose as soon as the expansion began; and those diversified 
interests became more and more distinctive and accentuated 
with each inclusion, until the original guild split into frag- 
ments, which fragments established their own guild. The 
formulas and regulations which were accepted by the initial 
guilds did not completely satisfy the needs and aspirations of 
the coteries which the extended family embraced, and they 
became irksome whenever they were applied to, and were 
enforced upon, persons and families beyond the range of the 
exclusive circle by which they were instituted and promulgated. 
Secession followed ; new combinations arose ; other guilds 
were established, and contentions were rife, as to the incidence of 
power and authority, in a variety of forms. The battles of the 
guilds form an instructive chapter in the history of association, 
and especially as identified with labour, compared with which 
the contentions of trade-unions sink into insignificance, bitter 
as some of the feuds have been among the unions of modem 
times. 

II. The ordinances of the guilds ultimately gave birth to 
statute laws pertaining to labour. The earlier Labour Laws, 
such as the Statutes of Labourers, directly resulted from their 
action. It was but the natural outcome of regulation, the 
fruit after its kind. Figs do not grow on thorns, nor grapes 
on thistles — thorns grow thorns, and thistles, thistles. The 
attempts to fix the price of labour, to limit the number of 
labourers in a particular industry, to regulate by ordinance or 
oflacial sanction the hours of work, and to restrict the indi- 
vidual rights of the labourers, produced a reaction, which re- 
action found vent in counter-statutory enactment, the results 
of which continued to operate for centuries. For a long 
period^ the ordinances of the guilds and legal statutory 
enactments ran side by side. Sometimes they had the same 
objects, and operated concurrently ; at other times they were 
opposed to each other, the one being a check upon the other. 



114 A Plea for Liberty. [in. 

One effect of their operation was to establish customs which 
had the force of law. Those dual forms of regulation con- 
tinued in various, and often diversified forms, until the ' disso- 
lution of the monasteries,' and the final suppression of the 
guilds. It was not until after that date that legislative 
enactment supplanted the ordinances of the guilds, and 
usurped their functions. If the legislature of that period had 
resisted the prompted inducements to an interference with 
labour, and had restricted its action to such provisions as would 
have ensured freedom to all, and protection to each, in the 
exercise of that freedom, many of the evils of what is termed 
grandmotherly legislation would have been averted. The 
modern forms of interference are the direct result, the natural 
and inevitable result, of conditions which were created by 
State regulation, following upon the failure of corporate regu- 
lation as imposed by the craft-guilds of the middle ages. 

Legal enactment took two distinct forms ; there were (i) the 
Statute Law, as embodied in the Statutes of Labourers, com- 
mencing with the 23 Edw. Ill, and continued throughout the 
thirteenth century by various statutes, and in the fourteenth 
century by further regulations, as to wages and prices and 
hours of labour. Those enactments reached their fullest de- 
velopment in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when the laws 
were consolidated into what might be termed a code, and were 
made binding upon all the trades and industries of that time. 
And (2) charters, which were granted in some of the early 
reigns, and were continued down to very recent times, many of 
which were obtained by purchase, as in the case of the com- 
panies of the city of London, and some other corporate towns. 
The rage for legislative regulation is an outgrowth of those 
earlier conditions, a reverting back to the infancy of civilised 
society. This tendency is always strong in proportion to the 
lack of intelligence among the masses to perceive the true rela- 
tion between cause and effect, and the inevitable results of a 
given policy, whatever that poHcy may be. The history of 
that interference seems to be but a hazy dream to most men, 
even to those tolerably educated, or we should find greater 
hesitancy to embark on the same treacherous stream. 



III.] Liberty for Labour, 115 

Legislation was inaugurated by two distinct parties : (a) By 
that portion of the community opposed to the restrictive 
action of the guilds ; and (5) by the guild fraternities, in order 
to maintain their power, privileges, and immunities. The 
former contended that guild law, by ordinance or statute, 
was opposed to public policy, and they sought to suppress all 
kinds of associative effort, as mischievous and dangerous to the 
State. The latter desired to perpetuate monopoly by law. 
As the Israelites sighed for the flesh-pots of Egypt, during 
their journey through the wilderness, so the guild-brothers 
sighed for the continuance and maintenance of their power and 
authority over the trades and industries represented by their 
crafts. The demand for protective law by the guilds marks 
the period of their decay. They had recourse to legislation by 
statute, or regulation by charter, because they had failed, or 
were failing, to enforce their ordinances as theretofore. But 
this very failure of mutual control, by guild-law, is proof posi- 
tive that it was bad law in actual practice, either because it 
was ill-timed and unsuited to circumstances, not embodying 
enactments such as those for whose special benefit they were 
framed desired, or because the provisions were in themselves 
vicious. In either case the law was ineffective, and in the end 
it was disabling in its operation and results. 

With the suppression of the guilds, legislation took the 
place of guild ordinances and regulations. As the legislature 
at that period was non-representative, the legislation initiated 
was prompted by a class, for a class, as it was natural that it 
should be under the circumstances. Act was piled upon Act. 
One trade after another was brought within the sphere of the 
statute law, until all handicrafts, and nearly all kinds of 
labour, were subject either to statute or to ordinances under 
charter. As population increased, as society progressed, and 
as industries grew and expanded, there arose a revolt against 
those statutes and charters. The misfortune was, however, 
that instead of merely repeahng restrictive laws, the employers, 
then aU-powerful in Parliament, sought to substitute, and did 
substitute very often, other restrictive laws generally adverse 
to labour. The masters desired, by law, to inflict disabilities 



1 1 6 A Plea for Liberty, [iii. 

upon workmen, and the workmen similarly desired to impose 
conditions upon masters which were intolerable. This contest 
was continued for centuries, sometimes one and sometimes the 
other gaining ascendancy. 

The victory ultimately remained with the masters. Statute 
after statute was repealed, in so far as they were favourable 
to the workman, with the result that the latter were left 
wholly unprotected by law, and were unable to protect them- 
selves by mutual association, because of the Combination Laws 
and other statutes. On the other hand, most of the laws 
which were in the interest of the masters remained unre- 
pealed, thus leaving the workman in a hopeless state of de- 
pendence and disability. A period of transition is nearly 
always a desperate time for the weak and unprotected. So it 
was under the repealed laws referred to, ere association by the 
workman was possible, to mitigate the evils consequent upon 
the industrial changes then taking place in this country. For 
a long time the workpeople tried to defend the law and the 
institution, as their sole means of protection. The masters 
wanted freedom from the law — for themselves, but with the 
power to prevent combinations among the men. This unequal 
struggle continued up to the end of the first quarter of the 
present century, when, in 1825, the Combination Laws were 
repealed. Even then, however, the Master and Servant Acts 
were still in force and were administered with unwonted seve- 
rity. These were not finally dealt with, in any liberal spirit, 
until 1867. 

The movement amongst the workpeople for freedom to com- 
bine began after all efforts to keep in force the old protective 
laws had failed, which was towards the close of the last cen- 
tury. At first, and for a very long period, the tendency was 
to repeal disabling laws. The Statutes of Apprentices, the 
particular Acts relating to special trades, the old Combination 
Laws, Acts relating to Corresponding Societies, and subse- 
quently the Master and Servant Acts, were either partially, 
some wholly, others temporarily repealed, until, in 1875, after 
persistent efforts for nearly one hundred years, the remnant of 
the old Labour Laws, together with the Master and Servant 



III.] Liberty for Labour. 117 

Acts, till that date suspended, were wliolly repealed. At the 
same date the Conspiracy Laws were abolished, in so far as 
they applied to labour disputes. Ere this had been accom- 
pUshed; trade-unions were accorded the protection of the law 
by the Trade Union Act, 1871, and further, as regards their 
funds, by the Amending Act of i87<5. Some other obsolete 
statutes were repealed last session, by the Master and Servant 
Act, 1 890. All through this long struggle one sentiment was 
predominant ; the healthy sentiment of freedom was paramount. 
The workmen in effect said : We want no favour ; we only 
want fair play ; and by their attitude they declared — we will 
have it. The demand was simply for the repeal of restraining 
and disabling laws, with liberty to act, either individually or 
collectively, for their mutual advantage, whichever was deemed 
to be best. 

III. But long ere the freedom to combine was granted there 
arose a demand for protective law. And protective law, as 
then conceded, appears to have been an absolute necessity, 
remembering the state in which industry was left by the action 
of the legislature, as before recorded. The system of domestic 
manufacture, which had been the universal practice for cen- 
turies, under the guild system, and under legislation by statute 
and charter, had almost suddenly changed to a form of factory 
life, in. which women and young children were largely em- 
ployed in several important industries. These changes were 
due mainly to the discoveries and inventions, and the apphca- 
tion of mechanical powers and means to productive labour in 
the eighteenth century, whereby motive power, first by water, 
and subsequently by steam, was utilised to extend and increase 
production. The newer processes had the effect of bringing 
together young and old, of both sexes, to work under the new 
industrial system. These were aggregated together in out-of- 
the-way places, where they were often brutally treated, worse 
frequently than slaves in American plantations, and were abso- 
lutely without power of redress. The vivid pictures of that 
period, as portrayed ia the pages of Michael Armstrong, tell 
the tale of their woes ; it is further told in the Reports of the 
Royal Commissions and of Select Committees, appointed by 



ii8 A Plea for Liberty, [iii. 

Parliament to inquire into these matters, not in the glowing 
language and glaring colours of Mrs. Trollope, but in the sober 
blue-book language and truth, usual in such publications of 
the Government. The scenes there depicted were common in 
many industries nearly to the middle of the present century. 

With the dawn of the nineteenth century came the first 
Factory Act, ' for the Preservation of the Health and Morals 
of Apprentices and others employed in Cotton and other In- 
dustries.' The necessity for this Act had deeply impressed Sir 
Robert Peel, himself a manufacturer, who had made a careful 
study of the subject. From that date, i8oi-ij to 1878^ when 
the long series of Acts were consolidated and amended, the 
provisions of the earlier Act were extended and amended until 
they embraced all factories and workshops in which women, 
young persons of both sexes, and children were employed. 
They are no longer confined to the textile trades, but extend 
to all classes and kinds of manufacture. The Mines Eegula- 
tion Acts, in their earlier conception and application, were 
similar in character, and had almost precisely the same objects. 
For a period of ninety years there has been three concurrent 
movements — one for the protection of women and children ; 
another for the protection of life and limb, and health of all 
engaged in industry ; and the other for the repeal of old re- 
strictive laws, in so far as they pertained to adult males in 
their daily avocations in life. These have progressed side by 
side, all through the present century, and are still operating 
without cessation in nearly all trades. 

Those movements were not and are not inconsistent or in- 
compatible one with the other. A politician or statesman 
might support each without violating his principles or en- 
dangering his reputation for consistency. But two opposing 
forces have arisen in this connection ; the one would undo the 
legislation of the past, as vicious and mischievous, the other 
would so extend it as to embrace within the sphere of its influ- 
ence not only women and childen but adult males, in substi- 
tution for, or as going back to, the ordinances and statutes of 
earlier times. The action of both parties is provocative of 
diversified antagonism. In the struggle for ascendancy, the 



III.] Liberty for Lab oitr. 119 

chances are either that the good accomplished will be rendered 
nugatory by repeals of useful statutes, or that the principles 
underlying them will be so enlarged and applied as to become 
harmful to the mass of the people. This is the danger to be 
apprehended, and to be guarded against. 

IV. The principles which underlie the Factory and Work- 
shop Acts, and all similar Acts, are clear, definite, and dis- 
tinct. Generally, they have for their object the protection of 
women and children, who were, and still are, to a great extent, 
the latter wholly, and the former partially, unable to protect 
themselves. If the Acts, instead of protecting, disable, or if 
they are no longer needed for protection, then they become 
vicious and mischievous. But it must be remembered that the 
whole tenor of public law has been adverse, in several impor- 
tant respects, to women. The conditions under which they 
laboured were altogether different to those of men. Combina- 
tion by women was almost totally unattainable. Isolation 
and weakness were their lot, until marriage gave them a ' pro- 
tector.' Even then the protection was nearly nil, especially 
when engaged in any occupation. Often indeed they supplanted 
their husbands, and became the bread-winners for the family. 
The extent to which this operated is now scarcely conceivable, 
certainly it is not realised or appreciated by those who oppose 
all such legislation. The Reports of the Royal Commission, 
1840-43, give an inkling of the extent, baneful influences and 
effect, of child labour and women labour, in various indus- 
tries of that time, in so far as the conditions of employment 
were concerned, while the reports on the sanitary condition of 
the labouring population, at the same date, show the direful 
results in the home-life of the people. These reports are seldom 
perused now, but no one can understand to what fearful depths 
of degradation gTeed and need pressed down the workers 
in factories and workshops, in collieries and mines, and in 
other occupations in the industrial centres of Great Britain. 
Health and morals were the chief objects of the series of 
statutes to which reference is made, including sanitation, meal 
times, separation of the sexes, number of hours worked, night 
work, overcrowding, &c., &c. 



1 20 A Plea for Liberty. [iii. 

V. The other object sought by protective law was the 
safety of the workers. Sometimes health, morals, and safety 
were sought in one and the same measure ; as, for example, 
where fencing of machinery and ventilation of mines were 
provided for in the same Act which prohibited the employ- 
ment of women and children in mines ; or where regulations 
were enforced as to the employment of men and women, boys 
and girls in the mine or factory, under conditions provocative 
of immorahty, and where common decency could scarcely be 
said to possibly exist. In addition to personal safety of life 
and limb, responsibility in cases of injury while engaged in 
the ordinary occupation for which the workers were hired, 
was added. This, however, was not a new law; it was 
rather statutory limitation and application of the principles 
of Common Law, derived from the Roman Law, which were 
general throughout Europe and America. Thus protective 
law, in this instance, was designed to prevent fatal accidents 
or injury, or to punish under civil process those who were 
responsible, but who neglected proper safeguards for the em- 
ployes' safety. 

VI. The Public Health Acts are of a different class, but their 
aim was in the same direction, their provisions being on the 
general lines. Instead, however, of being solely, or even mainly, 
instituted for the protection of workers engaged in a par- 
ticular employment, they were designed for the benefit of the 
whole community, of which the workpeople form but a section. 
Nevertheless, under the Pubhc Health Acts, the Nuisances 
Removal Acts, and numerous other general Acts, all classes 
of workers are directly, as well as indirectly, benefited, in 
addition to the special protection given to them under the 
Factory and Workshop Acts, and other specific Acts. To this 
category might be added many groups of Acts of a general 
character, such as the Railway Acts, Building Acts, Drainage 
Acts, Housing of the Working Classes Acts, and others, all 
of which extend protection to workers, as part of the whole 
community, while some contain clauses for their especial benefit. 

yn. The motives which actuated those by whom all such 
legislation was inaugurated and extended in various direc- 



III.] Liberty for Labour, 121 

tions, were good, and the objects sought were definite and 
generally commendable. The promoters assumed, as a matter 
of course, that the individual could not protect himself in 
such cases ; that many of the circumstances which had arisen, 
necessitating interference by law, had been created by law, 
or were the direct or indirect results of law. The argument 
was, and is, that inasmuch as the conditions of modern society 
are mainly the outcome of legislation, in one form or another, 
those least benefited by such legislation should be protected 
against encroachments on their Hberty of action, and of mutual 
association, by those who had reaped the greatest advantages 
from enactments by positive law. How far, and to what 
extent, the position thus taken up is a right one may be open 
to argument ; and some of the facts alleged in support of either 
side or view may be challenged. In any case no one will 
contend that all such interference by statutory enactment is 
vicious. The questions in dispute mainly are : when, where, 
and how the interference shall take place ; and under what 
conditions and to what extent ? The general view is that, in 
matters relating to labour, the line shall be drawn at adult 
males ; that legislation for the protection of women and 
children is justifiable, and quite within the sphere of legiti- 
mate and positive law ; but that interference with the rights 
and liberties of grown men is an impertinence and a danger 
which ought to be resented and resisted. Such legislation is 
undoubtedly an innovation in the strict sense of the term. 
Indirectly adult males have been protected by Factory and 
Workshop Acts, and by Mines Hegulation Acts, Truck Acts, 
and similar Acts. For the most part such Acts were not 
passed ostensibly for the protection of men, except in so far 
as health and safety are concerned, the one exception being 
the Truck Acts. In all such legislation the whole community 
is concerned, as well as the workers. In this respect it was 
not class law for a section, but general law for the mass. The 
Truck Acts are of a different class, but they really aimed a 
blow at a system of fraud, perpetrated by those who had 
supreme control over the labour market, and against whom 
the workers were powerless to compete. Many of these con- 
10 



122 A Plea for Liberty, [iii. 

ditions were manifestly created by, or were the outcome of 
law, by which masters were free to combine, and under which 
workmen were refused the right of combination, and conse- 
quently of resistance. 

VIII. The demand for an extension of the provisions of 
positive law to cases not heretofore within its pale, or domain, 
is, it is to be feared, as much due to unwise attempts in the 
direction of limitation as to unwise attempts to run in 
advance of public opinion by its extension. For instance, 
there was an outcry against what is called ' gTandmotherly 
legislation ' by the Laissez-faire school of political economists, 
as they are termed, with the object of restricting such legis- 
lation. The Liberty and Property Defence League of to-day 
is regarded by many as carrying to the very extreme the 
principle of non-interference by law in matters of ' contracts 
of service' in the realm of labour. The adherents of this 
school appear to be inclined to appeal to philosophical prin- 
ciples only in so far as they are protective of their own 
interests. This is not perhaps intentional, but proceeds from 
forgetfulness of what they owe to earlier legislation and regu- 
lation. They protest, and in many cases rightly, against the 
enactment of fresh restraints on individual liberty, but they 
are not enthusiastically eager to part with advantages which 
earlier legislation has conferred upon the class from which 
the members of that school are drawn. For example, the 
State undertakes to maintain entails and settlements, and 
provides facilities for the collection of debts, therein con- 
ferring advantages on the landowning, trading, and capitalist 
class. If progress is to bring with it a gradual diminution in 
the use of legal machinery in the affairs of every-day life, it 
is obvious that these and similar agencies provided by the 
State must be modified, as being harmful to the development 
of human character, and be excluded just as much as enact- 
ments which seek to confer advantages upon, and to protect 
and advance the interests and status of, the labourer. There 
should be some reciprocity among all classes, thus showing- 
confidence in the expanding tree of liberty as a refuge for the 
protection of all. Such dogged resistance to any extension of 



III.] Liberty for Labour, 123 

the domain of la.w leads the advocates of extension to discard 
all notions of limit, and in reahty it re-acts in favour of the 
wildest conceivable schemes of Municipal and General Law, for 
all kinds of purposes, and for all sections of the people. Both 
parties seem to have a very confused notion as to the true 
basis of law, and of the issues involved therein. They are 
divided into two armies, for attack and defence; they aim 
wildly at each other, neither having a very clear idea where 
the other is in the fray. They have no conception of a golden 
mean in matters of State policy, or that there is a plateau 
of debateable land on either side of the imaginary boundary 
line of legislative interference, which may still be open for 
demarcation and delimitation. The political philosopher, and 
the social statist or political economist, must attempt to trace 
the exact line, if an exact line can be traced, where the State 
shall act or interfere, and where it shall be neutral, resisting 
alike those who seek to pass the boundary in whatever 
direction, whether by further extension of legislation, or by 
the repeal of legislation in force. This is now all the more 
necessary, seeing that ' statesmen ' and those who seek 
'parliamentary honours' are subject to continuous external 
pressure for new legislation, on old or new lines, as the case 
may be. Every member of the popular branch of the legis- 
lature is being forced, almost against his will, to support this 
or that measure, the exact bearing of which, beyond its more 
immediate objects, he does not see, or in the least degree per- 
ceive. Such pressure is exercised quite irrespective of other 
pressure in a contrary direction, by another set of enthusiasts. 

The requisition for legislation during the last six years 
has been enormous, it is becoming more and more irresistible 
and dictatorial each year, and it will be perpetual and 
growing, until some principle of policy is formulated by 
which thoughtful men can stand. Whether or not this be 
possible is a question for debate ; but the absence of a policy 
is dangerous to all concerned — to the State, as a hving or- 
ganism, and to the various sections of the community of 
which it is made up. >-: 

IX. The sphere of legislation is now sought to be extended 



124 A Plea for Liberty, [iii. 

in various directions, covering a wide field. Some of the 
measures demanded belong to a class which has had the 
sanction of all parties in the State, and also of the majority 
of economists, to whichever school they may belong. There 
have been differences of opinion as to the degree and exact 
extent of the legislative interference to be conceded ; and 
some few have protested against the kinds, and the methods 
adopted ; but actual resistance to its principles has been 
small. The particular branches of subjects embraced in the 
new demands may be classified and summarised as follows : — 

(a) Acts for extending existing provisions relating to the 
safety of persons engaged in more or less dangerous occupa- 
tions. This series of enactments is based upon principles 
which are not generally called in question, as being in any 
sense an infringement of legitimate law. It is universally ad- 
mitted that no man has a right to contribute to the injury 
of another, whether the person injured is in the employ of 
such other person, or is a ' stranger,' not in his employ. This 
personal protection is indeed the essence of all law. The State 
exists for no other rightful purpose ; all else is usurpation, no 
matter what euphonious name may be applied to the condition 
of things in which such protection is denied. 

(6) Compensation for injury is of the same class, and is the 
natural sequence of the foregoing. The Common Law has 
always held the person causing the injury responsible, and 
liable to pay compensation. The Employers' Liabihty Act 
does not extend the responsibility ; on the contrary, it rather 
limits its application, and also the amount of compensation 
to be awarded. As a set-off to this limitation, it gives an 
easy remedy by summary process for the amount claimed. 
Instead of expensive litigation in the Superior Courts, the 
County Court may assess damages up to a certain restricted 
amount. Against measures of this sort there can be no legiti- 
mate objection, provided the}^ are framed and administered 
with equity. The limitation of responsibility and liability 
only dates back some five and forty years, and was not even 
then the subject of positive law, but of interpretation by the 
highest legal tribunal, the House of Lords. 



III.] Liberty for Labour, 125 

(c) The Public Health Acts endeavour to ensure, as far- as 
practicable, immunity from dangerous conditions arising from 
unhealthy occupations, carried on in unsanitary dwellings, or 
premises, where the work has to be performed ; and also pro- 
tection to the inhabitants from the effects of unhealthy areas, 
bad drainage, or other defects dangerous or injurious to 
health. When a person undertakes to do certain work he 
runs the risks usually incidental to such employment. But 
it is always understood that such risks are limited to those 
that are not preventible. To endanger a man's life needlessly 
is upon a par with manslaughter. The worker has a right 
to expect that all reasonable care shall be taken to lessen 
the danger, and prevent accidents wherever possible. In ac- 
cepting a tenancy, the tenant has the same rights as against 
his landlord. All this is old law, and is good law ; nor can 
it be abrogated without danger to the community, and to 
the State. 

(d) The Factory and Workshop Acts constitute the special 
group to which exception is mainly taken. In this class of 
legislation there is a growing tendency towards expansion 
and extension, and of including objects and purposes not 
within the purview of existing law. Many regard this ten- 
dency with strong disfavour ; even those most favourable see 
in it a great danger. Demands are being daily made for the 
extension of these Acts. The advocates thereof urge that such 
legislation shall be logical, and face the full consequences of 
recognised principles, in enactments already in force. It is 
not always clear that the proposals made are the logical 
outcome of legislation now in force. And even were it so, 
there may be, and often are modifying circumstances or con- 
ditions that prevent the application of the specific ' principle ' 
alluded to ; while there are many cases to which such prin- 
ciple does not logically apply. Each case must be taken on 
its merits, and no man need feel any obligation, moral or 
otherwise, to support new proposals because he has felt it 
incumbent upon him to support similar legislation in other 
cases to which such Acts apply. Circumstances alter cases in 
numberless instances and ways_, certainly not less in matters 



126 A Plea for Liberty, [in. 

of legislation than in affairs relating to conduct, and of every- 
day life. Those who urge legislation on the ground of logic, 
must be prepared to face the logical sequence of their own 
proposals, both in life and conduct, and in Statute Law. 
We shall presently see where such proposals will land us, and 
shall ask those who seek to discredit the action of reformers 
who do not see eye to eye with them, whether they are pre- 
pared to accept the full consequences of the legislation de- 
manded, not only in the realm of labour, but in the domain 
of social and private life. The question must be faced, for the 
nation is verging to the point of danger in this connection. 

X. The recent inquiry by the Lords' Committee into the 
Sweating System, as it is called, has opened up a wider field. 
Not that there is anything absolutely new in connection with 
it, except perhaps that it has developed more widely, and 
evoked a deeper interest on the part of the public. Those 
who will turn to the pages of Alton Locke, published forty 
years ago, will find that the Rev. Charles Kingsley laid bare 
the chief features of the Sweating System. Mr. Henry Mayhew 
also, in his 'London Labour and London Poor,' showed to 
what extent it had crept into the furnishing trades, especially 
in all that pertained to cabinet-making and fancy work con- 
nected therewith ; and also into the tailoring trades and some 
other industries. Those men preached to deaf ears. The 
public conscience was not touched. There was no response 
to the earnest appeals then made, which were treated either 
as the appeals of fanatics, or were regarded as of so senti- 
mental a character as not to come within the pale of practical 
politics. The ' Sweating System ' in itself is hard to define ; 
even the Select Committee of the Lords hesitated to commit 
themselves to any definition. Mr. Arnold White gave the 
highly philosophical description of 'grinding the faces of the 
poor;' but the Committee felt that this definition was not 
sufiiciently .precise for legislative purposes. All the witnesses 
were able to adduce evidence as to the evils of the system. 
The Lords' Committee were deeply impressed by the volu- 
minous evidence given before them, as to the extent of the 
evils, and the baneful effects, in various ways. But they 



III.] Liberty for Labour. 127 

were not able to formulate any plan for dealing with them 
by enactment. They advised combination, co-operative pro- 
duction, and sanitary inspection, the latter only being in the di- 
rection of positive law. But to be able to deal with any subject 
of statutory enactment, the promoters thereof should be in a po- 
sition to define the objects aimed at, and the precise extent of the 
contemplated interference. It is not sufficient to state the evils to 
be remedied, because these may arise from various causes, some 
of which are scarcely within the sphere of practical legislation, 
and some remedies might intensify rather than cure the disease. 
XI. The Sweating System is mainly the outgrowth of a 
domestic system of industry, but apparently not wholly so. 
At any rate, it attains its highest development in those trades 
in which the family can perform the work independently at 
home. This is seen in the tailoring trades, the boot and shoe 
trades, and in the cabinet-making trades ; and also in the 
chain-making, nut and bolt-making industries, in Staffordshire 
and parts of Worcestershire. It is almost universal in con- 
nection with women's work, of all kinds, especially so where 
they are able to do the work at home. The 'sweater' is the 
outcome of many elements, the result of many causes ; some 
of these might come within the domain of legitimate law, 
but many are beyond the province of positive enactment. The 
head of the family, the responsible bread-winner, has been the 
chief promoter of sweating. He has preferred independence 
and isolation as a home worker, where he has the freedom 
to work when he likes, and to idle when he pleases. He has 
utilised the skill of his wife, and then of his children, to 
enable him to produce quickly, while the competition of other 
men, similarly placed, has compelled him to produce cheaply — 
too cheaply perhaps to enable him to live decently, as a skilled 
workman should live. This system of domestic manufacture, 
has in recent times been earned en under such conditions 
as to become a positive danger to health, not only to those 
who live immediately under such conditions, but to the 
locality in which they dwell, and often to the whole suiTound- 
ing district. This has led to the demand for sanitary inspection, 
with power to ' invade the sanctuary of the home,' even when 



128 A Plea for Liberty. [iii. 

tlie family only are employed. Workers, in very despair, 
invoke tkis power, and sanitary reformers seek it as a means, 
in their opinion the only means, of abating a widespread evil, 
the consequences of which might become dangerous, or at least 
very injurious to the whole community. 

Xn. The desire for legislative interference has of late 
been growing to such a degree that it has become a passion, 
in many breasts an all-pervading passion, which is apparently 
insatiable. It is with many a mere dilettante longing for some 
change, which shall bridge the gulf of classes, now separated 
by an almost impassable chasm. With others it is the cry of 
despair. They feel the terrible struggle for existence so acutely, 
and see no possible means of escape from the intensified and 
continuous strain, mentally and physically, that they look to 
the State to interfere, for protection and support. If it be not 
despair, it is decadence, true manhood being crushed out, in so 
far as its higher attributes are concerned. Others, again, seek 
the aid of the State out of utter idleness, and ingrained 
laziness ; their idea of life seems to be not to do anything 
for themselves, except that which they are compelled to do 
from sheer necessity. The most serious proposal in recent 
times, is the application of the principle of State interference 
with the labour of adult males, and the fixing of their hours 
of labour by law. The proposals at present before the country 
are various ; some propose to go only a little way, others go 
the 'whole hog.' Of the two the whole hog people are the 
most logical and consistent. They seek a universal law of 
Eight Hours, for all sections of the people, without distinction 
of class or industry. The possibility of its application is quite 
another matter. The advocates of this 'principle' do not 
trouble themselves with such trifling questions as possibilities ; 
what they demand is the principle of a uniform day of Eight 
Hours ; it is for the legislature to find out the way, and the 
methods of its application. If, they say, the thing is right, 
Parliament can formulate the provisions and the means. It 
is the duty of Parliament to put into language, and give 
expression to the aspirations of the people. The conclusion 
is simple, and, may we say, profound. 



III.] , Liberty for Labour. 129 

XIII. The definite formulated proposals now before ttie 
country are limited to certain employments ; but the ad- 
vocates, for the most part, regard those as only initial steps 
towards the grand consummation, by them devoutly wished 
for. The first measures suggested are : 

(a) An Eight Hour day for all Government employes. It 
is not quite clear whether the advocates of this policy seek to 
enforce eight hours' continuous work upon all Government 
employes, or whether they only desire that those who work 
longer than eight hours shall be brought within that limit, 
leaving those who work less than eight hours, the full enjoy- 
ment of present privileges. This is a point upon which they 
are discreetly silent. 

(5) There is a further demand that all persons employed by 
Municipal Corporations, and all Local bodies and Authorities, 
shall be employed for eight hours only. Here, again, it is not 
quite clear whether the rule shall be universal, or only partial, 
in its application. The demand is general, the advocates 
disdaining to descend to particulars, either as to the appli- 
cation of the regulations, or the limitation (if any) of their 
operation. 

With regard to these two classes of employes, there is no 
kind of pretension that they are over- worked, or that their 
labour is exhausting or dangerous. The contention merely is 
that the State, or the Municipal Institution or Local Body, 
should show an example to other employers, by working the 
men fewer hours, and paying them at the highest rates of 
remuneration. No one will contend that the State should 
under-pay, or over- work, its employes. But, on the other 
hand, few will assert that the State should so deal with labour, 
as practically to regulate the hours of labour, and fix its price. 
Yet the contention of those who seek such interference in- 
volves these conditions, in its operation and results. Custom 
has the force of law ; and a State-regulated day, and a fixed 
rate of wages for such working day, would ia effect govern the 
labour market generally, certainly for the same kind of labour, 
in all parts of the country. 

(c) A section, and it must be admitted that they constitute 



1 30 A Plea for Liberty, [in. 

a very considerable section, of the miners, seek for a State- 
regulated day of Eight Hours. Their various Associations 
have prepared a Bill for that purpose, which Bill has been 
introduced into Parhament. The representatives of the counties 
of Durham and Northumberland have, with the general assent 
of their mining constituents, withheld their sanction to the 
measure ; but the representatives of other mining districts 
support it, and they denounce all those who withhold their 
support. The supporters of the Bill contend that the mining 
industry is a dangerous occupation, and that labour in the 
mine is exhaustive, and, therefore, that the horfrs of work in 
the mine should be limited. "With regard to the question of 
danger, the law is pretty severe at present, and any plea on 
the score of danger will command attention and respect. But 
legislation in this direction comes under a totally different 
head, and ought not to be pleaded on behalf of State regu- 
lation of the hours of labour. The exhaustive nature of the 
work is admitted, but the plea holds good in other industries. 
Yet the supporters of the Bill declare that the measure is 
limited to mining, and is not intended to apply to other trades. 
Leaving the question of danger out of the calculation, it might 
be asked whether iron-workers and steel-workers, blast- 
furnacemen, and some others, could not put in as reasonable 
a plea on the score of exhaustion, and the laboriousness of 
their occupation. Some of those employed on railways could 
also plead both danger and exhaustion, and therefore the limit- 
ation proposed, for miners only, will scarcely hold good. 
Besides, no class of men in this country have done so much 
for themselves, by themselves, as the miners. To their credit 
be it said, they have shown an example, worthy of all praise, 
of self-help, and mutual help by associative effort, such as 
might be advantageously followed by the workmen of all 
classes in the country. 

(d) The Shop Assistants of the country, especially those in 
the metropolis, have formulated demands for the early closing 
of shops, either generally, on all days of the week, or specifi- 
cally, on certain days, with half-holidays, because, as they 
assert, they have found it impossible to adequately curtail 

% 



III.] Liberty for Labour, 131 

their hours of labour otherwise. The fact is that the pressure 
of long hours has not been felt sufficiently to induce them to 
combine for shorter hours, or they would ere this have gained 
their ends. In many houses the hours of labour have been 
reduced considerably, without State interference, and the ten- 
dency is still further to reduce the working hours of this class 
of employes. Where women and young persons are employed, 
the law operates as it stands, under existing legislation. 

(e) But the most curious requisition of all is the demand, 
by a large number of Shopkeepers, that shops shall be closed 
at a certain hour by Act of Parliament, under Municipal or 
Local regulation, by the majority of the votes of those engaged 
in the particular businesses to be regulated. Sir John Lubbock's 
measure admits the difficulty by omitting certain establish- 
ments, and shops, from its operation. Those omitted are, in 
point of fact, the very places in which the hours are the 
longest, such as public-houses, hotels, restaurants, eating- 
houses of all sorts, tobacconists, newsagents, and some others. 
The exceptions prove that State regulation is difficult and 
dangerous. Many of those who clamour for the interference 
would resent any attempt to put in force a law prohibiting 
Sunday trading, yet this would give one whole day's rest in 
seven. All these proposals practically admit that voluntary 
regulation is not possible to the extent demanded. Does not 
this imply that State regulation is impracticable 1 Is it not 
an admission that statutory enactment is not required by 
those for whose benefit it is ostensibly intended % The power 
to close at a given hour exists in all places. 

(/) Another of the proposals made is to insist that in all 
Railway Bills and Tramway Bills, and of course, naturally, 
in all Bills involving the employment of labour, and requiring 
Parliamentary sanction, provisions shall be inserted fixing the 
hours of labour at eight hours per day, as a condition prece- 
dent to the passing of such measures. Notice to that effect 
was given in the session of 1890, but the question was not 
the subject of debate upon any Bill, nor was any attempt 
made to raise it. This mode of Parliamentary interference 
and regulation is perhaps the most extraordinary ever sub- 



132 A Plea for Liberty. [iii. 

mitted to the House of Commons. The proposal bears no 
resemblance to the provisions inserted in Railway and Street 
Improvement Eills relating to the housing of the working- 
classes, as powers are given in such Bills to compel the 
vacating of dwellings within the area taken compulsorily, and 
that too without any compensation or consideration to the 
poor families evicted under the Acts, By the Housing of 
the Working Classes Act, 1890, some provision is made for 
the costs of removal, when the dwellings are required for de- 
molition, in order to clear the area ; but even this proviso 
does not really amount to compensation. There is, however, 
no analogy whatever between the two sets of cases ; nor can 
that enactment be quoted in support of the former demand, 
upon any logical or reasonable grounds. If Parliament is to 
be called upon to interfere in matters relating to labour in all 
Bills brought before the Legislature for Parliamentary sanction, 
there is an end to the respective ' rights,' whatever these may 
be, of capital and labour. It would be better at once to ^^ 
the hours of labour, and its wages or price, by legal pro- 
visions which shall be binding upon all classes, employers 
and workmen alike, in all departments of industry, all over 
the kingdom. 

XIV. There are four very serious objections to this kind of 
legislation, all of which must be removed before it can be in- 
itiated and carried into effect. These are : 

(i) The impracticability, nay impossibility, of its universal 
adoption and application. All laws which are partial in ope- 
ration are made by a class, for a class ; and class legislation is 
generally condemned, most of all by the working-classes, and 
rightly so. For more than a century we have been busily 
engaged in undoing the class legislation of previous centuries — 
in repealing the statutes, and in removing the obstacles they 
had created. The work is not yet completed, for the effects 
remain long after the statutes are repealed. Everybody who 
may be at all acquainted with the history of past legislation, 
admits that the earlier legislation in this direction hampered 
trade, hindered the advancement of the people, and operated 
adversely to labour. It took an entire century to repeal the 



III.] Liberty for Labour, 133 

Labour Laws, and some of them are not even now repealed. 
We are asked to revert back to similar legislation ; to fix the 
number of hours of the working-day, and to practically set up 
a standard of wages. Can this be done effectually for all 
trades ? One would like to see the draft of a measure, setting 
forth in detail, in a schedule, all the industries of the country, 
with the number of hours to be worked as the normal working 
day for each trade, and the minimum rates of wages to be paid. 
In such schedule, what should govern the length of the day, or 
the rate of wages ? Should it be skill, the exhaustive cha- 
racter of the labour, the cleanliness or dirtiness of the occupa- 
tion, the insanitary conditions under which it is carried on, 
or what? It would be an interesting session in which all 
these questions were discussed and settled, if settled they ever 
could be. Each class and section would have its accredited 
experts, whose duty it would be to show that his clients de- 
served to be put in this or that class, or to be exempt from 
this or that regulation. That time is not yet come. 

(2) The inelasticity of positive law is adverse to the de- 
velopment of human intelligence and skill. An Act of Par- 
liament is necessarily directed more to the restraint of liberty 
than to its expansion. Hence the principle upon which it is, 
or ought to be, conceived, is that caution is better than reck- 
lessness, and that it is above all things advisable to hasten 
slowly in matters of legislation. The great majority of 
people do not at all understand the nature and character of 
an Act of Parliament. Working-men especially seem to re- 
gard it merely as an ordinary resolution, registered by both 
Houses of Parliament, and capable of being as easily and 
readily rescinded or amended as any resolution passed at a 
public meeting, or by the committee or council of the body 
with which they are associated, and with whose acts and re- 
solves they are more or less familiar. An Act of Parliament 
is certainly not like a law of the Medes and Persians ; it is 
not an enactment which cannot be abrogated or set aside. 
But it frequently takes a longer time, and involves more agi- 
tation and expense, to repeal an Act, even when its effects 
have admittedly been pernicious, than it did to place it on the 



134 -^ Plea for Liberty, [in. 

statute book originally. It is no light matter either to enact 
or repeal a statute ; even to amend it often requires years of 
earnest and persistent effort. Of legislation generally it might 
with truth be said that fools rush in where angels fear to 
tread. The House of Commons is slow, frequently very slow, 
to embark on new experimental legislation ; and when such 
is initiated the expedient of ' temporary law ' is often resorted 
to, requiring that its assent shall be renewed year after year, 
in order to see how it works before it is made a permanent 
statute. Many such laws are renewed session after session by 
an Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, at the close of each 
session ; an indication of the extreme caution of the Legislature 
in any new departure in positive enactment. 

(3) Supposing there was no question as to the ' principle ' 
of such legislation, the administration of the law would fre- 
quently involve hardships m^ore intolerable than the evils they 
were meant to cure. The inspection required, to see that the 
laws were enforced, would necessitate an army of inspectors, 
all of whom would, in the very nature of things, become more 
and more dictatorial, inasmuch as they would be the masters 
of employers and employed alike. Labour would have to 
cease at the sound of the State gong, and any work performed 
beyond the legislative limit would be an infraction of the 
statute. If the necessities of the hour required that work 
should be continued after the fixed point of time, a permit 
would have to be granted by the inspector, magistrate, town 
council; or some other recognised authority constituted for the 
purpose. Overtime would have to be abolished in all cases, 
except in instances of great emergency. Overtime, with a 
fixed legal day, would be impossible, or the legislation itself 
would be a farce. Those workmen who chuckle in their sleeve 
at the prospect of putting in more overtime, at higher rates of 
pay, would find that an Eight Hour Law was a law to be 
administered and enforced ; not an elastic regulation, capable 
of indefinite interpretation and modified application. Besides 
which, an Eight Hour Law would be a hollow sham which 
permitted working beyond the normal fixed day. Eight hours, 
and no more, must be the motto of those who seek it, if they 



III.] Liberty for Labour. 135 

are honest in their contention that such an enactment is 
needed as a means of providing work for the v^orkless. This 
aspect of the case is kept back by the advocates of the ' legal 
day ' of eight hours, but it must be insisted on, as part of the 
bargain. One month's experience of the administration of 
such a law would cure many of its advocates of their phrensy 
for State regulation, by a State official, in the ordinary affairs 
and conduct of every-day working life. 

(4) Such legislation would fail, as all similar legislation 
has failed in the past. It is useless to say that the conditions 
are changed — human nature is not changed — certainly not for 
the better in these respects. The greed of gain is as rife to-day 
as when Christ drove the money-changers out of the Temple, 
or as it was in the Middle Ages, when the Guilds regulated, or 
sought to regulate, labour and wages. The history of the 
Guilds discloses the fact that for centuries there was an in- 
tensely bitter contest between the Guild members of the various 
fraternities for the supreme control and for ascendancy. The 
feuds only ended with their suppression. The contests did 
not subside, but were continued under the enactments which 
were substituted for the earlier ordinances, until those were, 
in their turn, repealed. The charters from time to time 
granted were but abuses of power, by the creation of monopo- 
lies and privileges, and these for the most part had either to 
be abrogated, or so abridged as to be incapable of doing much 
mischief. Where they still partially exist the abuses linger 
and continue ; and even the advocates of legislative inter- 
ference apparently desire the final extinction of chartered 
monopolies and of power. In what way have the conditions 
of labour changed, or the character of workmen, to lead us to 
believe that legal enactment will be more fruitful of benefits 
now than of yore % Even the conduct of many of the advo- 
cates of such legislation belie the contention, for they are more 
bitter in their attacks, more unscrupulous in their action, and 
more offensive in their conduct, than were the antagonists of 
a bygone age, when such labour legislation was in force, and 
in the struggles when it was sought to be abrogated. Fitness 
for restraint is a condition precedent to legal enactment ; that 



136 A Plea for Liberty, [iii. 

fitness is not discoverable in the language and conduct of the 
chief advocates of Acts of Parliament for the regulation of 
labour, and for determining how long a man, in the plenitude 
of his strength^ shall work at his trade, or what he shall earn 
by his industry. 

XV. The advocates of further legislative interference in 
labour questions urge, above all things, as previously indi- 
cated, that we shall be logical in the matter of positive law. 
They quote Acts, and parts of Acts, in order to show that the 
' principle ' of interference has been adopted and applied ; and 
they accuse all who hesitate to extend the ' principle,^ on the 
lines they indicate, of cowardice in withholding assent to the 
newer forms of legislative action which they suggest. ' We 
are all socialists now,' said an eminent Parliamentary hand. 
Yes ; in a sense that is so. Some are socialists by conviction, 
no matter upon what inadequate grounds ; others may be re- 
garded as socialists by their silence, and an attitude of non- 
committal, because they shrink from combating socialistic 
views and tendencies ; and many are socialists from lack of 
knowledge, lack of energy, and the absence of self-sustaining 
power. The growth of socialism is due to the enormous ex- 
pansion of our wealth resources, the advantages and benefits 
of which are only shared by the comparatively few, instead of 
the many,and by the consequent contrast of poverty and riches, 
which may be seen on every hand. This state of things is to be 
deplored, and as far as practicable to be remedied; the only 
question is— how ? The two distinctive proposals put forward 
by the Fabians and the Socialists are, firstly, the extension of 
the provisions of the Factory and Workshop Acts to all the 
trades of the country, where only adult males are employed, 
as well as where women and children are employed ; and they 
seek to apply the provisions of those Acts to domestic manu- 
facture of all kinds, where the family only are engaged in pro- 
ductive labour, as well as to industry where persons are hired 
by an employer. And, secondly, they seek the regulation of 
the hours of labour by statute-law, generally and uniformly, or 
partially, as the case may be, as before stated. Those two points 
may be said to cover the present demands relating to labour. 



III.] Liberty for Labour, 137 

XVI. The extension of the provisions of the Factory and 
Workshop Acts to domestic industries, where the members of 
the family only are employed, will inevitably destroy do- 
mestic manufacture in all trades. Some affect to deny this, 
but all the better informed advocates of such extension 
acknowledge that such will be its effects and results ; and 
they even rejoice at the prospect. It is not necessary for 
present purposes either to attack or defend the system of 
domestic industry. Great evils are connected with the system, 
many are the natural outcome of it. It is, however, essential 
that all classes and sections of the community should know 
what is sought, and what is inevitable, if the legislation pro- 
posed is carried into effect. If all places and premises where 
work is carried on are to be inspected ; if a certain cubical 
space is to be insisted upon in all such rooms ; if the hours of 
labour, of meal-times, and the provision especially that meals 
are not to be taken in the same room, are enforced, how is it 
possible for any kind of work to be done at home? The 
thing is impossible. This fact must be clearly understood by 
all who are likely to be affected by such legislation. The 
sleeping room of the family will have to be as open to the in- 
spector as an ordinary workshop, for it is well known that in 
numberless instances one room serves for all the purposes of 
living, working, cooking, and sleeping. Are the mass of the 
people prepared for so drastic a measure — will they submit to 
it ? And not only will the domestic ' workshop ' be absolutely 
abolished, but the small masters will have to go, just as the 
small private schools practically ceased to exist with the insti- 
tution of School Boards. The effect will be that industry of 
all sorts will be concentrated, centred in fewer hands ; huge 
establishments will monopolise trade, and the workers will, in 
consequence of their own action, be at the mercy of a few 
large firms, or great trading companies, with the result that 
in the event of being discharged, for certain reasons, no other 
establishment will be open to them. 

XVII. It might be thought that the demands of the new 
school of labour advocates have been exaggerated, and that the 
possible evils resulting from such demands have been maxi- 

11 



138 A Plea for Liberty, [iii. 

mised. One fact alone will disabuse either notion, if it exists. 
Recently, as late as August, 1890, the newly formed Dockers' 
Union, led by the men who claim to be the originators of 
what they are pleased to describe as the ' New Trade Unionism/ 
decreed that their books should be closed ; that no new mem- 
bers were to be enrolled; that they were now sufficient in 
numbers to perform the work at the docks, and that any addi- 
tion would but impede their progress, by being brought into 
•competition with the accredited members of the Union. Any 
departure from this decree was to be left in the hands of the 
Executive of the Union. This autocratic ukase is worthy of 
the most unscrupulous despotic tyrant that ever disgraced the 
pages of history ; no parallel for it can be found in the annals 
of labour, except, perhaps, in the more degenerate days of the 
trading corporations of the Middle Ages, or possibly in some of 
the commercial ' rings ' of modern times. It says, in effect : 
We, the members of the Dockers' Union, are quite sufficient 
in numbers to do all the dock-work of the port of London, or 
other ports ; we only are to be employed ; no other men shall 
come into competition with our labour, and we will dictate the 
terms and conditions upon which we shall be employed. If 
you don't like it, we will stop all industry until you cave in. 
Supposing all other Unions adopted the same policy, and shut 
out all labour except that which had been enrolled in the 
books of the Union — what is to become of the unemployed % 
Beggary, or the workhouse, is to be the lot of all new comers 
into the field of industry, unless they can be banished into 
other lands. If any doctrine so abominable had been pro- 
pounded by employers the world of labour would have been 
up in arms. The monopoly of the land, or of the Upper 
Chamber of the Legislature^ sinks into insignificance by the 
side of this unexampled piece of wicked stupidity on the part 
of the new leaders, the apostles of the new trade unionism. 

The mere fact that such a piece of stupendous folly could 
be seriously entertained by any body of sane persons is bad 
enough ; but that it should be promulgated, and be treated by 
any portion of the press otherwise than as the ravings of fana- 
tics, shows to what depths of utter imbecility, ignorance, and 



III.] Liberty for Labour. 139 

presumption men can be found to descend when blinded by 
passion, led by bigotry, and actuated by mere selfishness in 
the attainment of their objects. Men of this stamp, if once 
they had supreme control over the legislative machine, would 
annihilate individual liberty, and reduce God's image to a 
mere photograph of one human pattern, as lifeless as clay, to 
be reproduced mechanically, as the sole type of manhood in 
the world. They seem not to know that the Great Creator 
has impressed upon the human soul an individuality as com-, 
plete, and as multifarious^ as is to be found in the forms and 
features of the myriads of men and women which constitute 
the mass of humanity ; and they appear not to be aware of 
the fact that it is as impossible to mould the human mind to 
one stereotyped pattern, as it would be to shape the form and 
features in one iron mould, to the same model. It is not only 
impossible ; it is undesirable, even were it possible. In all 
nature variety is charming ; certainly it is not less so in 
human character than in other animate, and in all inanimate 
objects. Dull uniformity realises the highest conception of 
life, conduct, and character in the breasts of those who have 
no distinct individuality of their own. When Pope said of 
the female sex, ' Most women have no character at all,' he was 
regarded as having libelled the sex ; but absence of character 
would seem to be the acme of perfection, according to the new 
gospel of socialism, in which manhood is to be crushed out of 
humanity, and the State is to regulate the desires, attain- 
ments, and needs of all, individually and in the concrete. To 
rise at morn to the sound of a State gong, breakfast off State 
viands, labour by time, according to a State clock, dine at a 
State table, supplied at the State's expense^, and to be regu- 
lated as to rest and recreation, do not realise a very high con- 
ception either of life or conduct. Yet this is the dream of the 
new social innovators, whose aim is to suppress individuahty, 
and substitute therefor State control and Municipal regulation 
in all that concerns private life. 

XVIII. Lest it should be thought that the foregoing re- 
marks are somewhat strong, as regards the leaders of the new 
labour movement, it is only necessary to refer to the action of 



140 A Plea for Liberty. [iii. 

the Unionists towards those who abstain from joining the 
Union, or refuse to be bound by its rules and regulations. 
The claim of the pioneers in the cause of labour hitherto 
has been that no man shall be tabood socially, or be placed 
under the ban of the law, because of his belonging to a trade 
union. This was always the plea of those who sought the re- 
peal of the Combination Laws. That plea was for liberty to 
act, not for the power to coerce. Unionism is being used for 
the latter purpose of late, to a degree which is dangerous and 
wicked. To what extent it might be used if the unions, con- 
trolled by such men, were powerful enough to exercise their 
authority, especially if they had behind them the sanction of 
statute law, which the new leaders invoke, it is not pos- 
sible to conjecture, but we can have some faint idea from what 
has taken place, and is taking place, in various parts of the 
country. Law and liberty ought to exist side by side, the 
former protecting and guaranteeing the latter. When the 
two are divorced, law degenerates into tyranny, and liberty 
into license. Progress without order is impossible, and law is 
simply regulation, order being its essence. The endeavour 
should therefore be so to regulate, that the highest and noblest 
instincts and aspirations of man shall have full scope for their 
development and exercise, in every department and condition 
of life. This is always difficult enough, for society is in con- 
spiracy against non-conformity ; how much more difficult then 
will it be when positive law is invoked to enforce and main- 
tain uniformity in the domain of labour, and in the affairs of 
social life 1 It might be urged that the regulation of the hours 
of labour will not necessarily involve the abnegation of indi- 
vidual rights in the manner described. But we reply that as 
the logical outcome of the regulation sought it would be 
inevitable. 

XIX. The domain of law as applied to labour may be 
generally described under two heads : (i) Protective law, the 
object and purposes of which are to protect the weak against 
the strong, as exemplified in the Factory and Workshop Acts, 
for the protection of women and' children ; and all extensions 
of such law to cases where life and limb are concerned. 



III.] Liberty for Labour, 141 

(%) Enabling law, the aim and purposes of which are to re- 
move obstacles to, and provide facilities for, the promotion of 
the well-being and happiness of the individual and of the 
mass of the people. To these might be added preventive law, 
whose province it is to interpose when any citizen, or any 
number of citizens, attempt to interfere with the legitimate 
rights of others. Herein is the rightful province of law; 
beyond is always doubtful, mostly dangerous. The multipli- 
cation of laws is perilous ; each new Act, almost of necessity, 
creates the need for further legislation ; it propagates itself, 
until newer circumstances arise to render it obsolete or useless. 
We have too much law, and too little justice. Additional law 
will scarcely tend to augment equity, in the true sense of the 
term. Therefore, instead of increasing the bulk of statute 
law, or extending it in newer directions, of bringing it to bear 
upon labour, in the manner proposed by its recent advocates, 
the object rather should be to curtail it, to simplify it; to 
codify that which is useful and approved ; to repeal what is 
bad and mischievous, and to give a fuller freedom to the 
faculties of man in all that is noble and good. The demand 
for more law indicates a decadence of manhood, an absence of 
self-reliant, self-sustaining power. It marks an epoch of de- 
pendence, the sure precursor of decay in men and in nations. 
Labour has been strong under persecution, has won great vic- 
tories in the conflict of industrial war. Its successes seem to 
have bewildered many, and they seek repose under the baneful 
fungi of legislative protection and regulation. 

Geoege Howell. 



IV. 

STATE SOCIALISM IN THE 
ANTIPODES. 



CHARLES FAIRFIELD. 



IV. 

STATE SOCIALISM IN THE ANTIPODES. 

Knowledge, most serviceable to students and investigators 
of political, social, and economical growth, change, and decay, 
as well as to all those who practise the art or science of 
government, is to be gathered from our great self-governing 
colonies. In Australasia and in Canada alone have demo- 
cracies already given several years' fair trial to certain 
measures, of a socialistic character, recommended in these 
days to our legislators at home, but, up to the present, 
almost solely on theoretical or abstract grounds. Although 
much laborious, minute, honest, and ingenious consideration 
has recently been given by thinkers in Great Britain, for 
example, to such ' socialistic ' remedies as a compulsory Eight 
Hours' Law for all industries (or for government and muni- 
cipal undertakings only). Free State Education (at the expense 
of the general tax-payer). Early Closing of Shops, and Local 
Option, the most convinced advocates of those experiments 
cannot do more than guess how they would work in the 
United Kingdom. It is to be regretted that the public in 
this country have as yet no complete, careful, and unbiassed 
account of important legislative acts adopted by the colonies, 
which are in advance — or perhaps rather in excess — of cor- 
related Imperial Acts and of the results, already manifest in 
corpore vili beyond sea^. For purposes of enquiry and com- 

^ Eeturns relating to colonial legis- *in Canada and the United States ;' 
lation — Canadian liquor legislation but as Acts of Congress are often 
chiefly — have been occasionally pre- loosely carried out, or allowed to re- 
sented to Parliament. In 1889 Mr. main dormant, American 'results* 
Bradlaugh obtained one return show- are not very instructive. When Sir 
ing the limitations of hours of labour John Lubbock's Early Closing of 



146 A Plea for Liberty, [iv. 

parison men and women in Australia are still very like Britons 
at home. Special forces there are, slowly fashioning out of 
populations of British origin a new and distinct type of citizen, 
with special ideas. But deep speculations on the future 
evolution of races and nationalities are not requisite in order 
to understa.nd the effect either of specific laws or of State 
Socialism grafted on to a community, transplanted it is true, 
yet bearing with it institutions copied closely from our own 
and based upon ideas and traditions with respect to civil and 
religious liberty, property, order, law, commerce, and economic 
conditions generally which have been the common property 
of all liberal thinkers and legislators in this country for the 
last fifty or sixty years. 

What Australasian colonists have done is specially instruc- 
tive, because they have been specially privileged — enjoying 
indeed from the start a free hand. Their reforms or ex- 
periments have not been thwarted by the lack of money 
wherewith to give beneficence a fair trial. So vast has been 
the extension of credit to the Australasian colonies during the 
last thirty years, that private investors in Europe now enable 
Australasian governments, financial institutions, and private 
firms to dispose of some ^€"300,000,000 sterling of foreign 
capital. Colonial statesmen have indeed been as happy as 
the heir to a great fortune in a novel, who is able to indulge 

Shops Bill Was discussed, in 1888, State Socialistic enactments in Aus- 
some reference was made to the Vic- tralia ; and added, rightly enough, 
torian Factory Act of 1885. In 1890, that the British public, through 'Con- 
when Mr. Groschen's Local Taxation sularEeports,' knew a good deal more 
Bill was reviewed, it was not noticed about American, or Portuguese, legis- 
at all that the whole question of lation than about colonial. Of course 
' compensation ' to owners and lessees the official etiquette in such matters 
of licensed premises had been fully is to refer to the Agents General for 
thrashed out and dealt with in Vic- the Colonies. But although these 
toria in 1884, under conditions al- gentlemen are always most willing 
most exactly similar to our own. A to give information, the majority of 
Grlasgownewspaper (Aug. 1890) stated them have now been absent from 
that Mr, Bradlaugh next session their own colonies for years ; they 
might raise the question of obtaining may also, while members of Colonial 
— either through colonial governors. Parliaments, have been zealous par- 
or by small commissions sitting in tisans — or opponents — of the very 
the colonies — independent evidence legislation on which an unbiassed 
as to the scope and results of certain opinion is required. 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes, 147 

the author's brightest dreams of how to better things in general. 
Money borrowed in Europe has been, as a rule, laid out by 
colonial governments honestly, even if recklessly or unwisely. 
The honourable traditions of modern official administration in 
the United Kingdom have been transplanted in principle to 
the Antipodes, and no prominent public man there has en- 
riched himself by the shameful means common in the American 
Kepublics. Opportunist statesmen, willing to go great lengths 
in order to retain power and salary and to win the favour of 
the ruling classes, have held office, and now hold office, in 
Australia ; but as far as corruption or official peculation is 
concerned, ministers, legislators, and government servants 
have stood the rough assay of criticism and publicity well. 
Beneficent legislation has had a fair trial in the colonies, for 
the additional reasons that there is much less of that tangled 
undergrowth of private interests and acquired rights which 
confronts reformers and legislators in this country to clear 
away, while colonial democracies have no real knowledge of 
those historical, religious, or class grievances and animosities 
which warp and distort questions here. Except during an era 
of artificial and grotesque political rancour, subsequent to the 
nth May, 1877, party bitterness has never flourished. It has 
no tap-root in the colonies, and quickly withers under the 
sun- rays of material prosperity. Nobody, it has been asserted, 
is ever really very angry with anybody else for more than a 
week together in the Australasian colonies. 

The public in this country could have obtained fuller evi- 
dence with respect to the success or failure of legislation 
based on State Socialism, in the only part of the world where 
it has really had an extensive trial, were it not that, in the 
first place, colonists dare not now do much to dissipate the 
haze which discreetly veils their afiairs ^. Year by year the 

^ A then member of the opposition in his return to Australia he assured a 

one of the colonial legislatures — him- newspaper interviewer that he had 

self an acute observer, able thinker, been careful, in conversation with 

and scathing critic in the Local As- public men in London, to refrain 

sembly of the financial, economical, from mentioning any awkward facts 

and moral results of State Socialism — which might tend to alarm investors 

visited London early in 1890. On in the United Kingdom. This reti- 



148 . A Plea for Liberty. [iv. 

private and personal interests of classes and masses alike are 
becoming more and more bound up with the borrowing policy 
of their governments, and with the enormous extension of 
commercial credit and nominal transfer of investment money 
from this country to the banks and financial institutions in 
the large colonial cities. The success of the periodical and 
now absolutely indispensable loans floated on the London 
market being at present the first and most vital of Australian 
interests, it is considered unpatriotic as well as suicidal to 
circulate widely any statements prejudicial to governmental 
or joint- stock credit^. 

Many returned colonists residing in this country might 
furnish independent and valuable testimony on the new 
experiments and their results ; but, by a curious natural 
coincidence, the man who is capable of making and keeping 
a fortune can seldom describe instructively, in print or in 
speech, the country, the people, or the institutions which have 
contributed to his success. There is, for instance, the typical 
returned colonist, possibly a wool-grower, professional man, 
or employer of labour on a large scale, and possibly a man of 
standing, experience, and powers of observation. When he 
first settles in South Kensington he may patriotically resolve 
to give the British public his particular views about protective 
tariffs, political financing, or the latest vagaries of Trade Union 
absolutism, in his particular colony, through the medium of 
the London Press. But, even supposing that he is neither a 
bore, a crotchet-monger, nor a mere partisan, when he settles 

cence is significant. Yet, it is not ties on the London Stock Exchange, 
the business of Australian colonists and although no large account in 
to warn investors here against lend- them is ever open ' for the fall' there, 
ing them that money without which an uneasy superstition prevails in the 
State Socialism — including protected colonies that ' the Stock Exchange 
industries, fancy wages, short hours, bears ' are, somehow, habitually in- 
extravagant educational privileges, terested in depressing those securities. 
and other ' collective ' luxuries — As far as that institution is concerned, 
would long since have collapsed. colonial bonds are taken up and held 
Caveat emptor i^ a principle discreetly in large blocks, by a few very rich 'job- 
inculcated by colonists of all classes. bers, ' who try to retail them gradually 
^ Although there is not, and never to the investing public. Practically 
has been, any speculation — in the the Stock Exchange must always be a 
gambler's sense — in colonial securi- ' bull ' of colonial securities. 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes, 149 

in South Kensington our typical squatter, merchant, or man 
of culture is apt to become so delighted with the ways of the 
up-to-date Londoner, the cheapness of art-furniture, overcoats, 
stationery and umbrellas in the shops, and the solemn luxury 
of West-end clubs, that he grows pleasantly confused and 
ultimately dumb, as far as Britons anxious for information 
about State Socialism in the Antipodes are concerned. We 
have heard of late years something about the evils of Free 
Trade in New South Wales from furious protectionist partisans, 
hitherto in a minority in that colony ; we have had some notes 
from gentlemen with a tiny Home Rule axe to grind. In the 
year 1886 the Sydney Protectionists, Trade Unionists, and 
Socialists paid the expenses of a special envoy to London, 
partly accredited by the Melbourne Trades' Hall Council, whose 
business it was to enlighten the British public, and to dissuade 
British wage-earners from emigrating to the Antipodes or spoil- 
ing the labour-market there. The British public learns some- 
thing, but not much, from the third-rate literary man who 
occasionally voyages as far as New Zealand and back, then 
determines to make a book. The few j ournalists of ability 
who have made flying visits to the colonies of recent years 
refrain from saying much about graver colonial questions, 
chiefly because they recognise that it is extremely difficult 
to obtain trustworthy information, off"- hand, on political, 
economic, industrial, or financial matters even on the spot. 
Australians are not demonstrative nor communicative to 
strangers, while local discussion of the serious and sinister 
problems accumulating behind the dominant policy of State 
Socialism is for various good reasons economised as much as 
possible at present. There is practically no magazine or 
review literature in Australasia. Two or three of the great 
newspapers published in Melbourne and Sydney contain of 
course a mine of undigested facts and information about State 
Socialism in the colonies, but they are virtually unread in 
this country. 

The notes collected by Mr. Froude during his trip to the 
Antipodes in the early part of 1885 contain, like all his work, 
profound, brilliant, and suggestive passages. But 'Oceana* 



150 A Plea for Liberty. [iv. 

does not profess to be more tlian a sketch. Baron von 
Hubner's ' Voyage through the British Empire ' is a shrewd 
and sympathetic survey, by an historical friend of England, 
of the self-sown Englands beyond sea. He does not offer 
to draw broad deductions for us. Lately some clerical 
tourists of more or less eminence have described for home 
readers what they saw in the colonies. It is well to 
remember that the various unestablished religious bodies 
there have from time to time received valuable grants of 
land from the State ; the Scots 'Church in Melbourne, and 
the First Presbyterian Church in Dunedin, for example, 
possess real estate of enormous value at current rates. The 
principal ministers of religion are therefore well paid, pros- 
perous, and enabled to maintain an informal standing re- 
ception committee, which takes travelling clerical celebrities 
from this country in hand, and in the true spirit of Oriental 
hospitality supplies them with that kind of information as to 
Free State Education and crypto -socialism which is likely to 
gratify them. Persons with mines to sell, bi-metalists, and 
imperial federationists from beyond sea merely darken 
counsel. 

This year Sir Charles Dilke has caused to be published a 
handsome book, in two volumes, wherein some of the problems 
confronting rudderless democracy in the great self-governing 
colonies are noticed. The opinions on such matters of one 
of the most industrious and conspicuous of our political 
recluses were awaited with curiosity. Some persons even 
hoped that Sir Charles Dilke might, after many years of 
intermittent interest in the affairs of the colonies, make 
democracy in Australia as instructive a text for, at all events, 
2a brief homily, as De Tocqueville made of democracy in 
America. But his new book leaves the impression that Sir 
Charles Dilke lacks, among other things, the critical insight, 
as well as the mental equipment generally, required in order 
to examine and explain for English readers those profoundly 
interesting problems of which he has heard. He has perhaps 
no political philosophy of his own, or if he has he economises 
it. Possibly the domination of a political philosophy, which 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes. 151 

adds so much to the symmetry and penetrating effect of 
French criticism, would have been inconvenient in this case. 
Its absence in an ambitious writer, proposing to deal in- 
structively with problems which take us down to the very 
bed-rock of civil society, is in these days a defect. Sir Charles 
Dilke, it appears, has not visited the Australasian colonies for 
over twenty years. That is another defect. He rightly pays 
most attention to the colony of Victoria, but has virtually 
made himself the conduit-pipe through which to distribute 
the views of a group of cultured and interested Victorian 
protectionists and half-fledged socialists to the British public. 
A thriving and contented political party, generally describing 
themselves as Badicals, exists in Victoria. The impression 
remains that Sir Charles Dilke pined to call the radicalism 
of the New World into existence to redress the balance of the 
Old. Accordingly he wrote for information about problems 
to some worthy Radical gentlemen in Victoria. And they 
wrote back to him in a cordial spirit, being dehghted to 
find that a politician who was very much thought about 
in England, and had once been a minister of the Crown, was 
prepared to accept a brief from them. 

Yet a man will hardly travel right round the world with- 
out learning that there is something to learn, and Sir Charles 
Dilke has done one service to the reading and thinking public 
here by discovering, and then frankly and clearly pointing out 
that State Socialism entirely permeates the ruling classes in 
Australia, and inspires the policy of ministries and legislatures 
there. ' In Victoria,' he says (i. 1 85), ' State Socialism has 
completely triumphed.' Nearly all previous writers on Aus- 
tralasia have failed to see that, and have discussed colonial 
borrowing, Protective Tariffs, hindrances to immigration and 
to the growth of population, the Labour question. Free State 
Education, &c. as though they were so many isolated or detach- 
able phenomena. They are not isolated or accidental, but 
have all the same origin, being in their later phases merely 
the necessary product of half-digested socialistic ideas and 
theories. Sir Charles Dilke makes Victoria his principal 
text, no doubt because it is easier to get information, good or 



152 A Plea for Liberty. [iv. 

bad, about the finances, administration and general condition 
of that colony than of the others. Such facilities are mainly 
due to what might be called accident, that is to say, to the 
superior status and activity of the newspaper Press, in a 
country where newspapers may exercise immense influence. 
In New South Wales the daily Press is virtually represented 
by one enormously wealthy journal, 'The Sydney Morning 
Herald,' which now prudently expounds a dull opportunism, 
as far as colonial problems are concerned. It would be 
harsh and almost inhuman to criticise seriously the Adelaide 
(South Australian) newspapers. There is a true saying 
in the Antipodes that ' nothing ever happens in South 
Australia,' although Mr. Henry George announces frequently 
that his views are making great progress there. The 
Brisbane newspapers perhaps cannot — they certainly do not 
— lead or direct public opinion intelligently. In New Zealand 
there is no single town population wealthy enough to 
support a really great newspaper, and the Press is poverty- 
stricken and uninfluential. In contrast to all this, during the 
last twenty years the people of Victoria have chanced to be 
served by two daily newspapers, as ably conducted, wealthy, 
and powerful as any printed in the English language. 
Englishmen are beginning to forget that it was once asserted, 
with some truth, that the London newspapers 'governed 
England.' While our innumerable London newspapers are, 
perhaps, wisely abandoning the attempt to steer English 
opinion, the Melbourne * Argus' and the Melbourne ^Age' 
still conscientiously keep up the old fiction, and between 
them do govern and misgovern the colony. Their rivalry 
has been in many ways profitable to the colony. They make 
certain blunders and abuses — allowed to pass in the neigh- 
bouring colonies — impossible, and try to keep a search-light 
turned on to the administration. They do not quite succeed. 
Sir Charles Dilke, adopting views put forward by masters of 
* bounce ' and reclamie here, who have done so much to finance 
colonial State Socialism, asserts (i. 243) that we in England 
' understand the way in which they float their loans ' (in 
Victoria), ' and their system of book-keeping ; . . . . and we are 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes, 153 

well informed as to the objects on whicli their debts {sic) are 
spent;' adding (ii. 230), 'that no one who knows the public 
offices of South Australia, Victoria, or Tasmania, can accuse 
them of more laxity ip. the management of public business 
than is to be found in Downing Street itself.' 

I fear that our author has here yielded to the temptation to 
*sit down quickly and write fifty,' in order to make unto 
himself friends, at any rate among our socialistic kin beyond 
sea. The truth is that nothing definite can be known about 
the finances of the Australasian colonies. State Socialism 
there dares not present a genuine balance sheet. As may 
also be said of the French Republic at this day, there is in 
Australasia no system of public accounts similar to that which 
prevails in Downing Street. In Victoria, New South "Wales, 
Queensland, South Australia, and New Zealand, the control 
of expenditure by local Parliaments is really very weak. No 
attempt has been made to introduce the imperial system of 
simple, methodical, and exact account-keeping. Audit or 
check upon public expenditure is loose and inefiective in all 
the colonies. If we in England really understand ' the system 
of book-keeping, and the object on which debts are spent' in 
Victoria, we know more than colonists themselves know. 
Meanwhile, for years past reports of imaginary surpluses, as 
well as misleading and worthless ' official ' statistics, have 
been circulated in the Australasian colonies, and have been 
carelessly reproduced here^. The statement is constantly put 

^ A Colonial Office Return, 8i of 'not final.' They certainly were not ; 

1890, ' Statistics of the Colony of Vie- for by the close of the Parliamentary 

toria,' gives (p. 50) the 'net earnings' session, on the 21st November, 1889, 

of the State Railways since 1884 at a it was discovered that the huge sur- 

fraction over four per cent. The reality plus — which the hon. the treasurer 

of these ' net earnings ' is extremely in August had generously distributed 

doubtful. The ' Finance Account ' on in doles, such as £60,000 a year extra, 

p. 32 will not bear examination. A note to railway labourers ; £ 1 40, 000 a year 

on the samepage gives the ' statement ' to municipalities ; £250,000 bounties 

(really an official "precis of that year's on exports, to already ' protected ' 

budget) ' distributed to members of industries, cottage asylums, wire net- 

the Legislative Assembly in July, ting for the State rabbits, public 

1889,' which showed a credit balance, buildings, &c. — had no existence, 

or surplus, of £1,607,559. These The whole story of this bogus sur- 

figures, it is cautiously added, were plus had already been told in the 

12 



154 



A Plea for Liberty. 



[IV. 



forward, for example, that the Victorian State railways, which 
are supposed to represent an expenditure on productive public 



Melbourne Press two months before 
the Colonial Office Keturn in ques- 
tion (which reproduces it as genuine 
with the endorsement of the then 
governor of the colony, Sir Henry- 
Loch), was 'presented to both Houses 
of Parliament, by command of her 
Majesty/ In the last hours of the 
session of 1889, the hon. the trea- 
surer announced that the govern- 
ment balance in the hands of the as- 
sociated banks had fallen to £142,000, 
that he had been compelled like all his 
predecessors to borrow from 'Trust 
Funds/ but to the extent of £1,2 30, 000, 
and that he would require to float at 
once on the London market a loan 
for £1,600,000 (formally devoted by 
Parliament to railway construction 
in 1885) as well as a further loan of 
£4,000,000 to square his accounts. 
It was subsequently admitted by 
ministers that the surpluses of that 
and previous years had been mainly 
arrived at by the strange but, it ap- 
pears, time-honoured book-keeping 
expedient of crediting the revenue 
with all money received during the 
financial year and ' carrying forward ' 
certain expenditure, or debits, to 
futurity. A memorandum to the 
Premier from Mr. Edward Langton 
(an old Victorian public servant and 
financier of ability, who is banished 
from political life because he is a free 
trader), was published in the princi- 
pal Melbourne newspaper, Dec. 4, 
1889, and showed that, according to 
the Victorian audit commissioners, 
for years past, large sums had been 
expended without the sanction of 
Parliament, improperly withdrawn 
from the debit side of the public ac- 
counts and carried forward for sub- 
sequent adjustment. Since 1885-6 
this ' charging forward ' amounted to 



£3,500,000. The audit commissioners, 
it further appeared, are powerless to 
interfere with this ' system of book- 
keeping.' It transpired at the same 
time that no separate or distinct 
Railway departmental account or 
budget existed ; the audit commis- 
sioners and the railM'ay department 
did not even agree as to the real 
amount of the railway capital ac- 
count ; no railway 'sinking fund,' or 
reserve, to meet losses, such as com- 
pensation to passengers for railway 
accidents, existed ; while expendi- 
ture which, by the General Post 
Office, or by any solvent railway, in 
this country, would be charged to 
revenue, was habitually charged to a 
floating capital account, to be re- 
couped out of future loans. The fic- 
tion of ' non-political control ' of the 
Victorian railways is reproduced by 
Sir Charles Dilke. It is true that 
(chiefly owing to the efforts of the 
'Argus') since 1884, Mr. Speight, a 
railway authority of great experience 
from the Midland Company, a born 
judge of work and possessed of singu- 
lar energy, ability and tact, has been 
' at the head ' of the Victorian Rail- 
way department. But in matters 
of high State Socialistic finance 
the ' Minister for Railways' was, until 
the attempt to create a new Parlia- 
mentary Committee ad hoc in 1890, 
supreme. Mr. Speight has been con- 
stantly attacked and thwarted by the 
labour party and their political satel- 
lites, but now shows some signs of 
having become a convert to their 
ideas. Chaotic as is th^ condition of 
Victorian 'book-keeping,' matters are 
still more confused in New South 
Wales. From February, 1886 to Jan- 
uary, 1887 an Irish gentleman, who 
in the romantic garb of a disguised 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes, 155 

works of the bulk of the money borrowed by that colony 
since 1865, honestly earn a surplus in excess of the interest on 
their cost. That statement is not, and never has been, true. 
The memorandum from the Railway Commissioners, read 
with the budget statement in the Victorian Assembly on the 
31st July, 1890, at last frankly admits that the earnings of the 
State Railways fell short of the accruing interest for the year 
by more than ^^220,000. 

Yet religions, or dogmas, which nobody can possibly 
comprehend do frequently make converts ; perhaps because 
of the haze obscuring the financial basis of Colonial State 
Socialism, Sir Charles Dilke (i. 195) judges that 'Lord 
Bramwell himself would ' find salvation, and ' become a state 
socialist if he inhabited Victoria.' Here we have the testimony 
of an absentee ' inhabitant/ who has not set foot in the colony 
for more than twenty years. Sir Charles Dilke, while vaguely 
civil to socialists in general, hardly understands that socialism 
is always a most logical, consistent and imperative creed. He 
has indeed a hazy notion that there are ' moderate European 
Socialists' with 'practical programmes' — set to stop as soon 



troubadour had won the heart of a management in the public accounts 

charming colonial heiress, and thus of Victoria and New South Wales 

laid the foundation of political emin- might no doubt be remedied in time, 

ence, was premier of the colony. He were it not that the prosperity of the 

managed, before stumbling out of dominant class and their dependents 

office, to associate himselfwith a deficit is now inextricably bound up with 

of £2,000,000, which has since been the continuance and extension of 

stated in the local Parliament, Feb. reckless financing. In order to ap- 

i889,tohavegrownto£4,o64,844. The predate the State Socialistic 'system 

truth is that no one in the colony of book-keeping' in Victoria, we 

knows how the matter stands. In ought to imagine Mr. Goschen dimly 

South Australia and Queensland the suspecting a deficit, drawing freely 

'system of book-keeping' and 'the ob- on funds in the hands of the Receiver 

jects on which their debts are spent,' General of the Court of Chancery in 

are, as Mr. Herbert Spencer would order to pay off incoherent issues of 

say, 'unthinkable.' New Zealand, Exchequer bills; and squaring one 

the colony whose credit has stood year's public accounts by council 

lowest of recent years, alone has what drafts on India — in the following 

may perhaps be called a sinking year. Meantime distributing ' sur- 

fund, and managed, at least on paper, pluses ' thus obtained in bribes to 

to reduce her debt by £1,383,432 various political groups, suggested by 

in 1889-90. Irregularities and bad the Social Democratic Federation. 



156 A Plea for Liberty, [iv. 

as mischief threatens. Although he finds that New South 
Wales has built and managed her railways in accordance with 
socialistic teaching, he seems to look forward (i. 274) to their 
being worked ' upon strictly commercial principles ' some day. 
In that case, he thinks, they could pay interest on their cost. 
He apparently does not understand how State Socialism 
works, why it is popular, seductive, and under favourable 
financial conditions, cumulative in its action, nor why it is 
combated and denounced by Lord Bramwell and other 
people. I take it the rough objections to State Socialism 
everywhere are, that it does not profess to 'pay/ in the 
business or commercial sense ; that, as regards Great Britain, 
therefore, funds to meet deficits and to keep the system going 
could only be obtained by levying novel and penal taxes 
upon industrious and thrifty people, and by plundering 
owners of fixed capital, either by sheer violence or by violence 
cloaked in hypocrisy ; that even if placed, somehow, on a 
paying basis State Socialism weakens and demoralizes the- 
national character, by striking at the whole conception of 
patient, courageous and orderly toil, struggle and endeavour — 
the most wholesom^ and ennobling conception human beings 
have as yet thought out for themselves. 

With a splendid subject and a splendid opportunity before 
him Sir Charles Dilke might have told us by what agencies 
the primary financial difiiculty has been got over in Australia. 
He shirks all that, but says there is now ' no objection or 
resistance to state ownership of railways ' or to ' state inter- 
ference ' generally ; that ' state socialistic movements render 
Australia a pioneer for England's good,' and hints that ' the 
Australian colonies as regards State Socialism present us with 
a picture of what England will become.' He is not able to 
tell us how State Socialism is affecting the national character, 
whether it is producing a nobler or baser type of man and 
woman in Australia. Our author has not however emancipated 
himself from the old-fashioned prejudice that triumphant 
socialism implies, sooner or later, the proclamation of the 
corriTnune, the burning of public buildings and the shooting of 
hostages ; he is delighted to be able to report that the sky has 



IV.] State SociaMsm in the Antipodes, 157 

not fallen, that hens still lay, and that tradesmen still come round 
regularly with provisions in the morning, in a country where 
State Socialism is supreme. To him it is ^an amazing fact' 
that Socialism ' in the French or English sense/ and ' Revolu- 
tionary, European or Democratic ' socialism absolutely do not 
exist among the all-powerful working class in the colonies ; 
he is so pleased with this aphorism that he repeats it in at 
least eleven different places ^. But whether State Socialism be 
installed by a revolutionary mob, by a dictator or by a 
Parliament, is not the main point. The real questions are : — 
can the thing itself be honestly made to pay, and will it give 
to a nation healthier, wealthier, and wiser men and women % 
In Europe and the United States socialism does usually suggest 
the idea of revolutionary, violent or terrorist methods, simply 
because state treasuries are not easily lootable and because 
tax-payers and owners of fixed capital there still resolutely 
offer all the resistance in their power to the very practical, 
and almost the first, demand made by modern socialists, for 
money to carry out beneficent plans which cannot possibly 
pay on their merits. Probably nobody is a Revolutionary 
Socialist ' in the French or English sense ' from choice. 

Victorian Trade Unionists concentrated in one or two lar^e 

o 

towns have of late years been allowed by the cowardice 
or apathy of all other classes in the colony to monopolize 
political power. Although Trade Unionists still jealously 
dislike to see men belonging to their special class in Parliament 
they have long 'owned' ministers and legislators, and thus 
obtained peaceable but complete control over the public purse ^. 



^ Pp. i. 185, ii. 264, 265, 267, 268, persistence in imbuing the colony 

269, 272, 279, 288, 296, 357. with the notion that they constitute 

2 Mr. Mathew Macfie, in a paper the party which controls voting 
read before the Colonial Institute, power at elections. So widely is this 
Dec. 10, 1889, designed to show assumption believed that candidates 
that the Australian colonies were at a Parliamentary Election, to whom 
crippled and restricted by lack of salary or political influence is a con- 
population, and efficient labour, says, sideration, defer with real or affected 
' The operatives in Victoria are or- humility to the wishes of the Trades 
ganized into a compact phalanx under Hall Council in Melbourne. The in- 
leaders who have succeeded by dogged evitable outcome of this state of po- 



158 A Plea for Liberty, [rv. 

They can pledge the credit of the colony in order to finance 
railways and public works which provide them, on their own 
terms, with * State ' employment and set the market rate of 
wages. In the course of a debate on Protection versus Free 
Trade held in the Concert Hall of the Melbourne Exhibition 
building before :^,ooo people on the 8th April, 1890, between 
Mr. Henry George and Mr. Trenwith, the latter — a member of 
the Legislative Assembly for one of the Melbourne divisions 
and President of the Trades Hall Council — boasted, with 
truth, that ' The Trade Unionists, wanting respectable houses, 
with a carpet on the floor and a piano, as well as good clothes 
and education for their children, told the legislators — their 
servants : — " Put a duty on such and such goods for us." ' 
Sir Charles Dilke notices (ii. 1*]^, that ' there is no timidity 
in the South Sea Colonies with regard to taxation upon land,' 
and intimates (i. 193), that the Victorian land tax — turned 
into a penal enactment by the radical party after their triumph 
in 1877 as an act of vengeance on their opponents — ^is certain 
to be extended whenever the colony is in want of money.' 
This tax, our author truly says (ii. 275), has caused ' a certain 
depression ' — subjective timidity perhaps. Colonial ministries 
now find easier ways of raising money than by a land tax ; 

litical subjection on the part of mem- (ii. 272) 'the Founder of Australian 
bers of the House, and in many cases Protection/ adding that ' he might 
of the Government also, is the injus- easily, had chance so willed it, have 
tice of class legislation.' Sir Charles made in the world the same name 
Dilke, writing perhaps from the point that has been made in later days by 
ofviewof an 'inhabitant' of a quarter Mr. Henry George, having put for- 
of a century ago, describes (ii. 316), ward in most eloquent and powerful 
the great respect felt for the Trades language the same principles at a 
Councils, and their almost invariable much earlier date.' In the Antipodes 
wisdom, moderation, sense of respon- Evolution, of course, proceeds en re- 
sibility, and marked spirit of justice. hours, and the Founder of Protection 
Mr. Macfie, who spent several years in question, who might, had chance 
in Victoria, and only returned in so willed it, have become the rival of 
1889, is however a specially valu- Mr. Henry George, although he still 
able witness, because he lived right diverts his admirers, whose pennies 
in the centre of the Protectionist and and patronage are making him a mil- 
State Socialist camp, having been lionaire, with cheap denunciation of 
editor of a powerful weekly journal, capitalism and landlordism, is to-day 
mainly owned by the same gentle- the wealthiest landowner in the 
man whom Sir Charles Dilke styles colony. 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes. 159 

but as long as the power remains of imposing taxes on large 
landowners, in order to pay off loans contracted and expended 
without the latter's consent or approval, the setting up of 
barricades, burning cities, and shooting hostages will always 
be^, for Australian State Socialists, works of supererogation. 

If our domestic socialists ^ in the French and English sense,' 
effectually controlled the Imperial Treasury, they might re- 
nounce felonious talk, cease to foment mutiny in the British 
Army and become Conservatives — in the best sense of the term. 
Sir Charles Dilke seems at one moment to realise how thoroughly 
practical are the aims and aspirations of the ruling class in 
Victoria, for he says (ii. 303), ' The Christianity that they under- 
stand is an assertion of the claim of the masses to rise in the 
scale of humanity.' This kind of Christianity has been under- 
stood in the same sense by the dominant classes in all ages and 
countries — from landowners, lay and clerical, in mediaeval 
times, down to British middle-class employers and ca,pitalists 
of a couple of generations ago — who controlled the national 
purse strings. All those people honestly believed in turn that 
they were ' the masses ' — in the best sense of the term — and 
they raised themselves in the scale of humanity, at the public 
expense, accordingly. Meanwhile our author fails to see that 
Colonial Federated Labour or Trade Unionism cares little for 
abstract ideas. It is doubtful whether British artisans any- 
where have hitherto cared much about them ; the founders of 
the International and the leaders of the Comteist movement in 
this country at all events considered it doubtful after years 
of experiment. Australian Trade Unionists — if occasionally 
given to violence and prone to break their engagements — are 
as good-natured, friendly, affable and well-conducted as the 
representatives of any dominant class of Britons that history 
tells of. They are fond of amusement, manly sports, and 
betting on horse races. The same might have been said of 
that large class who at the end of the last century lived and 
thrived on the Irish Pension List. Sir Charles Dilke seems 
further to have imagined that even if Australian working- 
class democrats abjured ' Eevolutionary ' Socialism ' in the 
French and English sense/ they must at least hanker after 



i6o A Plea for Liberty, [iv. 

land nationalization. He is pleased to find that they do not. 
Yet why should they % Unless the Australian Trade Unionist 
sees 30s. a week extra for himself in any State Socialistic 
movement he takes no interest whatsoever in it. There 
is no profit, direct or indirect, for any human being in 
nationahzation of the land, hence in Australasia land 
nationalizers, or single tax leaguers, are, politically^ about 
as influential and important a body as, let us say, the 
Swedenborgians in this country^. In March 1890, Mr. 
Henry George visited Australasia. He became an object 
of curiosity and attention there, partly because of recent 
years many colonial politicians, especially in Queensland 
and New Zealand, have suffered from a chronic indigestion of 
his theories. Sir Robert Stout, Mr. Ballance, Mr. Button and 
Sir S. Grifl3.th have each tinkered, in fragmentary, mischievous 
and futile fashion, with the Land Legislation of their colonies 
on Mr. George's lines. Colonists however insisted, in 1890, 
on studying Mr. George as a Free Trader, and the local 
socialists, who are perhaps more logical than Mr. George is, 
refused to believe that Free Trade — which is so wrapped up 
with equal liberty to make contracts, unrestricted competi- 
tion, self-help, cheap necessaries and other 'individualist' 
delusions — could work in with Nationalization of the Land, 
one of the most extreme developments of State Interference 
and State Socialism. Mr. Henry George, as an incoherent 
Free Trader, managed to puzzle and ofifend, instead of convert- 
ing, Australian socialists who, quite logically, are Protectionists 

^ Mr. William Webster of Aberdeen folk, who imagine that the mystic 
once described to me, as evidence of ' State ' can, somehow, invent money 
the spread of the light in the colo- wherewith honestly to buy up all 
nies, an ardent land nationalizer the freehold land in the world before 
from the Colonial Little Peddlington, nationalizing it. The Little Pedd- 
South Australia, who owned much lington landowner, it seems, had 
land himself. It was, I gathered, joined the anti-confiscationist sec- 
mortgaged, beyond its then value to tion, and as his land was quite 
local banks. Now there are two sec- unsaleable and a burthen to him, I 
tions of land nationalizers, confisca- was not surprised to hear that he 
tionists and anti-confiscationists, the had high hopes from ' the State,* and 
former being, of course, mere bri- was very enthusiastic, 
gands, the latter honest, but ignorant 



IV.] 



State Socialism in the Antipodes, 



i6i 



also. The fact, noticed by Sir Charles Dilke, that masses and 
classes in the colonies are now alike deeply interested in land 
' booms ' and in keeping up the value of freeholds, further 
explains Mr. Henry George's recent decisive rebuff there. 

High wages, in exchange for short hours of labour, do not 
come under the heading of idees^ but are practical things. 
The prevalence of the eight hours' rule in so many colonial 
industries is indirect, but strong, proof of the irresistible power 
conceded to Federated Labour. Although political depen- 
dents of the dominant class in Victoria at one time thought it 
worth their while to embody ' the eight hours ' in one or two 
Mining and Tramway Acts -^, Trade Unionists have been of late 
years strong enough to get what they want without help of the 
law ^. Indeed owing to the non -repeal of old British Statutes 
against 'combination,' Trade Unions were technically illegal in 
Victoria as late as 1885. Sir Charles Dilke says little about 
the Australian ' eight hours ' system. He seems puzzled 



^ The Melbourne Tramway and Omnibus 
Ad (765) of 1883, Sect. 62. says : — 
'■ The days of labour (sic) of any person 
employed by the Company . . . shall 
be eight hours,' but permits overtime, 
'for special payment,' to the amount of 
sixty hours' work per week. ' The Com- 
pany shall be liable to a penalty not 
exceeding £5 for every breach of this 
section.' It has never been necessary 
to enforce this penalty. The Regula- 
tion of Mines Act (783) of 1883, Sect. 5. 
says : — '■ No person shall be employed 
. . . for more than eight hours in 
any day, except in case of emergency.' 
The penalty for a breach of this 
section by a 'mine owner' is £50 
fine ; by ' any other person ' a fine of 
£10, recoverable by summary process 
before two justices. Although I can 
find no cases of prosecutions under 
this section, it seems to have been 
evaded, for an Amending Act ad hoc 
(883) of 1886 enacts, solely, that : 
• no person shall be employed below 
ground in any mine for more than 
eight consecutive hours . . . from the 



time he commences to descend the 
mine until he is relieved of his work.' 
. . . The burthen of proving inno- 
cence of charges under these sections 
is thrown upon the mine owner or 
'other person.' 

^ A familiar argument for an eight 
hours' statute in Great Britain is that 
Trade Unions cannot enforce the rule 
themselves. Legal agencies are some- 
times superfluous. In the grim days 
when landlords were absolute in 
Ireland the legal machinery for col- 
lecting rents was very imperfect, 
actually far behind that existing in 
England ; the Act of i860 first gave 
large powers in that respect to Irish 
landowners. Aware of this, I once 
asked a venerable Irish farmer how 
landlords managed to collect rent 
in his youth ? * Well, you see,' he 
said, 'landlords didn't want much 
lawyer's law in thim times. The 
mashther's rint-warner just wint 
round wid' a big cart-whip, and he 
found no pettyfoggin' impidimints 
at all.' 



1 62 A Plea for Liberty, [iv, 

(i. 250) to understand how Victorian manufacturers manage 
to compete with foreign rivals, although 'paying double 
wages for 20 per cent, less time than at home.' But he 
entirely underestimates the ' protection ' of the tariff, as well 
as the other advantages enjoyed by the local manufacturer, 
and increases his confusion by taking 'an average duty of 
II per cent.' on the total Victorian imports^. He says 
(ii. 286) that the eight hours' day * according to general ad- 
mission has been found as satisfactory throughout Australia 
as in Victoria,' a generalization which omits much one would 
like to know. ' We might gradually/ he thinks, ' introduce 
it into the contracts of the State and the municipalities in 
this country, and give it the force of a general law in the case 
of those trades to which it would be most easily applied,' but 
does not tell us by what devices the inconveniences of 
diminished 'supply' or production — as well as the waste 
and loss due to reduced efficiency of labour — are met and 
counterbalanced ; nor whether the conditions which make the 
eight hours' rule possible in Australia are to be found in 
Great Britain. 

Short hours of labour and high wages seem to me largely 
convertible terms. Both are good things. The leisure enjoyed 
by colonial workmen, their brisk, cheerful and robust 



^ The bare, or 'face/ duty on the enjoyed by the local manufacturer, 

principal imported articles, which Victorian importers must provide 

really compete with local manufac- two separate capitals, and pay an 

tures, will be found over a course of average of 6 per cent, interest on at 

years to average from 30 to 50 per least one of them ; one is locked up, 

cent, ad valorem. On some kinds of perhaps for many months, in the 

paper, matches, earthenware porce- Custom House ; the other is required 

lain, china and glass and on wearing partly in Europe to pay for goods and 

apparel, it has worked out of recent partly to work with in Melbourne, 

years at from 75 to 150 per cent, ad We must add freight, insurance, and 

valorem. In order to arrive at the heavy port and landing charges, at 

total advantage or ' pull ' which the a port where wharf labourers get 

Victorian manufacturer enjoys, we is. 3d per hour for seven and a-half 

may safely treble the nominal or hours of work, and difficulty, loss of 

' face ' amount given in the tarijBf time and interest involved in exe- 

list. Thus, a nominal duty of 25 cuting orders in a market 13,000 

per cent, ad valorem means that miles distant, 
at least 75 per cent, protection is 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes, 163 

appearance, and the activity and ' go ' displayed by one or 
two out-door trades (such as masons and house carpenters) 
who work under the eight hours' system^ are pleasant to 
behold. A very high ' standard of comfort ' prevails amongst 
Australian workers, and no doubt, as Fleeming Jenkin argued ^, 
the standard or expectation of comfort, and the ideal scale of 
living for the family maintained by wage-earners, do deter- 
mine the amount of effort which they will put forth to raise 
wages or reduce hours of labour. It is well to remember 
that the success of such efforts depends upon very variable 
conditions, political, social, &c. The 'standard of comfort' 
firmly believed in by Australian alluvial gold diggers in 
1 85 1 -3 * embraced' champagne at five guineas a bottle for 
themselves, gold horse-shoes, now and then, for their horses, 
and silk dresses at ^nq guineas a yard, for the partners of 
their joys. What made that lofty standard of comfort possible 
in 1 851-3 was the easily won gold on Bendigo flats and other 
alluvial diggings. What are the conditions which have 
enabled Australian Trade Unionists of late years to maintain 
a particular standard of comfort, wages, and hours ? Sir 
Charles Dilke does not tell us. I believe they are entirely 
exceptional and artificial. 

The first local circumstance, or condition, favourable to 
the success and permanence of * The Eight Hours ' rule 
in Victoria is the protective tariff. The second condition 
is the absence of keen competition among workers of all 
grades themselves. The third is the settled policy which 
regularly provides ateliers nationaux, or employment for 
that class which is supposed to be all-powerful at election 
time on state railways and so-called productive public works, 
thus ' keeping a market ' for labour and creating a standard 
of hours and wages which private employers cannot compete 
against or vary. The fourth, correlated of course to the last, 
is the now inevitable, financial, or borrowing, policy of the 
various colonial governments ; which re-acts upon local banks 
and credit institutions. Colonial land legislation and the 
concentration of population in large cities are also favourable 

^ Recess Studies, Edinb., Edmonstons, 1870. 



164 A Plea for Liberty, [iv. 

conditions. How many of these, it may be asked, exist in 
Great Britain ? 

With slight exceptions the above conditions are in Australia 
all within the control of the very class which benefits 
directly by the eight hours' rule. The absence of competition 
is indeed mainly due to the fact that Australia is remote from 
the European labour market. A voyage thither means, for 
an artisan or labourer in search of work^ ^^18 at least, if he 
be a single man, and far more of course if he be married and 
have a family. These are, to millions of European workers, 
prohibitive rates, and constitute a natural or geographical 
protective duty upon .human beings, i.e. upon competing 
' labour.' We have only to compare steerage fares from 
Europe to United States ports — as well as from Continental 
ports to the United Kingdom — with passage rates to Australia 
to understand, firstly, why the eight hours' movement has 
failed hitherto in America and, next, how necessary it will 
be to stave ofi", somehow, the competition of Continental 
labour in many of our home industries if one of the principal 
elements of the success of the Australian ' eight hours ' is 
to be secured here. Except in Queensland, colonial labour 
leaders have compelled their political dependents to do away 
with that really socialistic measure. State-aided immigration. 
The various colonial governments have been similarly com- 
pelled to protest against any large immigration schemes, 
promoted from this side, even to remote West Australia. Every 
now and then Trade and Labour Councils urge governments 
to represent through the Agents General at home that there is 
really no field for labour in the colonies, and they take the 
most elaborate means to circulate the same fable in this 
country. Where land is abundant and nature propitious 
workmen make work for workmen. There is an absolutely 
illimitable field for free labour as applied to the resources of 
nature in the Australasian colonies. The development of 
that field would of course benefit every man, woman and 
child now living in Australia. But the arguments used by 
the old school of American Protectionists (who were indi- 
vidualists, perhaps without knowing it) that growing popula- 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes. 165 

tion and immigration make the surest market for native 
industries^ or home manufactures, cannot be used by State 
Socialists in Australia. The horrors of competition and the 
necessity for quelling it are their main texts. This was the 
lesson which Mr. Benjamin Douglas, President of the Trades 
Hall Council, inculcated upon Lord Rosebery in Melbourne in 
1884, and the virtual teaching of Australian labour leaders 
to-day is that every additional worker who lands, or is born 
and reared, in the colony is an additional competitor and 
therefore an enemy. While the ' goal ' or ' ideal ' of the 
economist and Free Trader, who finds before him boundless 
natural resources, may be roughly described as an ' infinite ' 
increase in the number of workers — never quite overtaking 
'infinite' increases in the demand for labour, production of 
exchangeable utilities and rise in wages — the goal or ideal of 
State Socialists and Protectionists, so far as it can be 
ascertained from the speeches, writings, and actions of such 
persons in Australia, is one single worker^ earning all the 
wages paid in his own, rigidly protected and stationary, trade 
and producing an infinitesimal amount of exchangeable 
utilities 2. This astounding but of course unacknowledged 
' principle ' underlies the whole policy of the dominant labour 
party and their political satellites iu Victoria. They therefore 
remain consistently indifferent to the slow growth of popula- 
tion and its actual decline in the mining and agricultural 
districts, to steadily diminishing exports and the neglect or 
decay of innumerable profitable employments for labour, such 



^ The Victorian Tariff Commission Trade Union Congress in 1884 for 

of 1883-4 elicited the curious fact having suggested that a market might 

that one lonely human being earned be found in British India for some 

his living by cutting corks in the Victorian manufactures. They were 

colony. Thus, for the benefit of this accused of a design to reduce Victo- 

cherished unit, a duty of 4cZ. per lb. rian wages to the Indian level. Ee- 

on cut corks had been maintained, presentative Trade Unionists have 

which was extremely irksome and recently protested against the State 

injurious to the Colonial wine in- Technical Colleges because young Vic- 

dustry generally. torians learn to become 'fitters,' lathe 

^ The Victorian Commissioners to hands, &c., there, and thus compete 

the last Calcutta Exhibition were de- with ' Labour.* 
nounced at the succeeding Annual 



i66 



A Plea for Liberty. 



[IV. 



as the production of frozen salted and tinned meat, fresh and 
preserved fruit, wine, oil, tobacco, dried fish, hides, pelts, 
butter, cheese, condensed milk, &c., for export. As long . as 
their political dependents will borrow money incessantly in 
London, spend it on so-called useful public works in and 
around Melbourne and increase the tariff at regular intervals, 
the labour party are well satisfied. Deputations representing 
various trades have constantly and successfully urged govern- 
ment to increase the duty on the article they were interested 
in, on the general ground that unless it were raised above 
%^ per cent, ad valoremfi they would have to sacrifice the eight 
hours' principle and reduce wages ^. 

Colonial State Socialism revolves in a sort of circle, and 
the same sequence appears to present itself at whatever point 
we inspect it. Politicians sanction and float loans, to provide 
employment for their patrons on pleasant terms ; local banks 
and credit institutions make use of the proceeds of State 
borrowing to ' finance ' building societies, importers, manu- 
facturers, tradesmen and private speculators, who in turn 



^ Victorian Free Traders have come 
to use arguments really borrowed 
from American Free Traders, from a 
country where ' Protection ' is merely 
a patch of a strange colour on a gar- 
ment woven throughout of ' indivi- 
dualistic ' materials ; contending, for 
example, that Protection in no way 
benefits the material interests and 
pocket of the Victorian working-man. 
Mr. E. Jowett, of the newly-formed 
Democratic Free Trade League, in a 
public debate with Mr. Hancock of 
the Trades Hall Council, on June 
II, 1 890, took this ground. In the 
United States Mr. Jowett's conten- 
tion is a truism, and, if we consider 
wage-earners as a class, and connote 
free trade in labour, no doubt it is 
equally true everywhere. But if we 
consider merely those Trade Unionists 
now alive in Victoria, and the cir- 
cumstances determining ' competi- 
tion ' among them, I think it will be 



found that the high tariff, by increas- 
ing enormously the cost of living, has 
frightened away transient or casual 
workers, has deterred others from 
marrying early or rearing large fami- 
lies, and has thus diminished ^compe- 
tition ' generally. Except among Jews 
and Eoman Catholics, the birth and 
marriage rates in the colony are omi- 
nously low. Married women born 
there and living under artificial, and 
in many respects unhealthy social 
conditions, shirk more and more of 
recent years the duties and exertions 
of maternity and rearing children. 
Already the most lucrative branch of 
medical practice in the colony de- 
pends on this sinister fact. The 
enervating effect of the climate upon 
women and young children, cost of 
house-rent, necessaries of life, ser- 
vants, and even milk, in Melbourne, 
explain if they do not excuse ' civic 
cowardice * of this type. 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes. 167 

give credit to working men for goods, or for land and houses, 
bought by them at inflation prices out of their savings. 
Neither shop debts, interest, nor instalments on purchases 
of land and houses, can be paid unless wages are good, 
and work on political railways and 'useful public works' 
plenty. These pleasant practices grow upon the community 
like opium eating. Ministers therefore dare not now hold 
their hand, calculate ways and means closely, or stop bor- 
rowing, lest the whole top-heavy fabric of State Socialism 
should come toppling down about their ears. The expen- 
diture for all purposes by the Victorian government for the 
last two or three years has been at the rate of about 
j^ 1 4,000,000 per annum ^. Part of this sum has been ob- 
tained by issuing bonds on the London Market, part from 
revenue. Under the existing hand-to-mouth financial policy 
it looks very much as though recent loans have been regularly 
floated to meet accruing interest on old loans ; that is, on 
the total bonded debt of the colony. When those Melbourne 
banks, which keep the government account, require to remit 
money to London to cash half-yearly coupons coming off the 
Bonds, they can draw upon London against the proceeds of 
each fresh loan, instead of having to buy wool or wheat drafts 
in the local market, and remit them. This agreeable system 
appears to be never ending ; as the local phrase goes, it ' re- 
lieves the banks,' and largely enables them to use their de- 
posits to 'carry' land speculators, and to expand local credit 
generally. The other half of the State expenditure in Vic- 
toria is derived from revenue, i.e. from Customs duties 
mainly. Neither coin nor bullion are in these days sent to 
Austraha. Transfers of ' money' from Europe to the colony 
therefore invariably take the shape of bankers' drafts, against 
goods exported to the colonies ; a fact which explains the ab- 
normally large imports into Victoria of recent years. Govern- 
ment, through the Custom House, thus takes a heavy toll upon 

* During the last seven years Go- lie and corporate debts have increased 

vernment expenditure has increased by £22,000,000, and annual exports 

by 41 per cent., while population has of ' produce and manufactures ' fallen 

increased by 15 per cent. only. Pub- from twelve to nine millions. 



i68 . A Plea for Liberty, [iv. 

all foreign ' money ' sent on private account for employment 
in Victoria. In addition, it levies a second toll upon any 
balance of new loans — left over after paying half-yearly 
coupons, or interest charges in London — which ultimately 
finds its way (in the shape of goods) to the colony. Thus 
the very same ' money ' may figure twice over in the public 
accounts ; once as the proceeds of Railway or Irrigation 
loans sanctioned by Parliament, a second time as 'revenue' 
intercepted in the Custom House. 

This methodical system of inflation, this recurring Milion 
Begen from Lombard St., is locally so convenient and popular, 
that no class frets itself over such minutiae as the efiect of the 
eight hours' rule in diminishing the efficiency of labour and 
restricting production. There is great latitude in regard to 
public works. The generous policy of government is con- 
tagious. If the estimated cost of a new railway or public 
building be exceeded, in practice, a supplementary vote is 
hustled through Parliament late in the session ; the whole 
thing is finally shaken up, shuffled, and discrepancies righted 
out of the next loan. No doubt the net efiect of short hours, 
high wages and dishonest or slovenly 'labour' in Victoria 
is represented ultimately in diminished production of utilities 
for exports But the Trade Unionist who has just wrung 

^ Anyone who attempts to estimate overt ' for the world's custom, where 
the economic eifect of the reduced withdrawal of capital or diminished 
hours and fancy wages enjoyed by efficiency of labour would at once 
Labour in Victoria, is at once con- tell upon the nation's home trade, 
fronted by the fact that the whole exports and imports. But in Vic- 
industrial or manufacturing system toria, where every £i worth of local 
there is very much a system pour manufactures which figures in offi- 
rire. While economists in Europe cial returns has cost at least £i los. 
dispute the existence of a 'wage to produce, and is nevertheless en- 
fund,' one becomes aware in Victoria sured a forced consumption in the 
of three such 'funds,' a fictitious colony by the protective tariff, close 
'wage fund,' an equally fictitious calculations as to the efiect of reduced 
' capital fund,' and finally a ' con- hours of labour, wages, &c., are 
sumers' fund,' all miraculously sup- almost impossible, 
plied by the State and the foreign The population of Victoria in 1883, 
investor. The ' efficiency of labour ' when resistance to State Socialism 
means something definite in the virtually ceased, was 921,743, and 
United Kingdom, where labour and the exports of home produce were 
capital jointly compete in 'market £13,300,000. In 1887 the population 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes, 169 

from his employer a good rise in wages, or the average citizen, 
the 'consumer/ who has just been told by a kite-flying land 
syndicate that his back yard is worth .^30,000, does not fret 
himself about dwindling production or exports. In Austra- 
lasia there have been no means either of judging whether 
successive reductions in the hours of labour have created em- 
ployment for ' the unemployed/ because in the first place no 
efficient workers are 'unemployed,' in the sense sometimes 
legitimately used here, in any of the colonies ; and in the 
second place the Federated Trade Unions prevent 'outsiders' 
from obtaining employment, or even appearing in the labour 
market at all. Nor is any light thrown upon the argu- 
ment that reducing the hours of labour in this country alone 
to eight would 'kill' certain trades. What is meant by 
the latter phrase in Great Britain, of course, is that our manu- 
facturers could not compete either in the Home, or in neutral 
markets, with foreign manufacturers. Victorian manufacturers 
do not care about the great neutral markets ; they export 
goods (in steadily diminishing quantities, by the way) to 
the adjacent colonies, but manage to do that partly because 
of the subsidiar}^ advantages mentioned above, and partly by 
selling goods there at a reduction — as compared with prices 
charged to Victorian consumers — equal to the amount of the 
Victorian duty on such goods. The tariff, of course, protects 
the flank of capital and labour alike against the competition 
of foreign goods in the home market. 

Austrahan State Socialists have for many years past op- 
posed and thwarted sales of the freehold of ' Crown ' land, — 
' the national patrimony ' they call it — and shilly-shallying 

was 1,036,119 (estimated), and the be largely due to the action of 'the 

exports (which have since risen and amalgamated miner,' who has long 

then declined again) £8,502,979. enforced Hhe eight hours.' Indi- 

Thus, while population had increased rectly, too, short hours and high 

some 27 per cent., exports had de- wages in Melbourne affect the supply 

creased nearly 40 per cent. All the as well as the efficiency of labour and 

while the class (farmers, graziers, &c.) production generally in the colony, 

who do produce utilities for export, workers being tempted to despise 

actually work far more than eight the slow process of developing the 

hoiu-s per diem. The diminution in natural resources of the colony by 

the yield of gold appears however to hard toil. 
13 



170 A Plea for Liberty. [iv. 

attempts have been made to force the State * leasehold 
system ^ ' upon farmers and settlers. They have failed disas- 
trously ; but one indirect result has been curious. The land 
already ' alienated,' or granted in freehold, in the colonies, is 
now the only land which can be freely dealt in. There has 
been, in fact, an artificial scarcity, or official land 'corner' in 
Victoria, South Australia, and New South Wales. The quan- 
tity in the market being thus artificially limited, and land 
speculation being, with the exception of the turf, the only 
one not liable to be suddenly upset by strikes and legislation 
'in the interests of labour,' the most reckless real estate 
gambling goes on from time to time in Melbourne, Adelaide, 
and Sydney. A dangerously large proportion of the invest- 
ment money remitted from this country of recent years, for 
employment in Melbourne, has gone to sustain land ' booms,' 
and is now represented by the 'paper' of land gamblers, held 
at fabulously inflated prices, by banks, building societies, 
mortgage, finance, and trust companies. Meantime enormous 
profits have been made by those persons who ' got out at the 
top' of the rise in land and house values in and near Mel- 
bourne. The phenomenal and ever-increasing concentration 
of population in a few large towns such as Melbourne, Sydney, 
Adelaide, Brisbane, and Newcastle of course stimulates the 
building and allied trades. It also swells the earnings of 
suburban railways and tramway companies, which depend 
for revenue on pleasure traffic. In Melbourne the heavy 
suburban railway traffic partly obscures the deficit which has 
to be faced on the interest account of the railway loans ^. 

^ An unfortunate expression of the ally for wire fencing, &c., and, as far 

late Professor Fawcett's to the effect as production of utilities is concerned, 

that he 'viewed with alarm the useless. 

rapid alienation of the public domain ^ Mr. Andrew Harper, M.L.A., 

in Australasia,' is constantly quoted estimates the loss — after deducting 

by the advocates of ' bottling up ' the net earnings from interest payable — 

nation's patrimony. The net result on the State railways (excluding the 

is that while the land's departments Hobson Bay system, the most re- 

may not sell freeholds to willing munerative of the suburban lines) at 

purchasers, the ' nation's patrimony ' £258,000 for 1888-9, and the Mel- 

is a huge breeding ground for rabbits, bourne Argus, in July, 1890, estimated 

costing thousands of pounds annu- this loss, for 1889-90, at £500,000. 



i 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes. 171 

The concentration of population also gives to the Federated 
Trade Unions immense strategical advantages. Nevertheless 
peaceable combination among wage-earners, even when rein- 
forced by perhaps the most efficient, rapacious, and unscrupu- 
lous organization now existing anywhere, does not seem to 
diminish the profits of the large capitalist — or, in other words, 
the market rate of earnings — apportioned to capital in Aus- 
tralia by economic circumstances, which in the long run are 
really more powerful than socialistic legislators and labour 
organizations combined ^. 

Possibly Mill's earlier opinions on that matter were shaken 
by a succession of notable Trade Union victories about 
twenty years ago. The mountebank economists of our own 
day assert that as State Socialism progresses, even unskilled 
labour in this country will henceforward secure an ever-in- 
creasing and permanent benefit, at the expense of capital. 
We have had, among other events, the London Dock Strike of 
1889, in which the police observed an attitude of neutrahty ; 
also the triumph of a riotous and violent mob of municipal 
gas workers at Leeds. No doubt L'ish farmers have in recent 
years secured for themselves a vastly increased share of the 
profits derived from Irish land ; but that latter triumph, espe- 
cially, was brought about by extra-legal, barbarous, or terrorist 
methods. To such methods any conceivable re-adjustment of 
proportionate profits, at the cost of the weakest class, is pos- 
sible. As long however as the struggle between capital and 
labour proceeds peaceably according to the recognised ' rules 
of the ring ;' in other words, wherever civil order and civil 



*• Working expenses ' alone, it seems, possibly be retrenched from his per- 

having risen from 52^ per cent, in sonal expenditure . . . there is no 

1879 to 68 per cent, in 1 8 89-90. law of nature making it inherently 

^ I saw nothing in Victoria to jus- impossible for wages to rise to the 

tify the opinion expressed by J. S. point of absorbing not only the funds 

Mill in his latter years (Fortnightly which the capitalist has intended to 

Revieic, May, 1869) that 'There is devote to carrying on his business, 

absolutely available for the payment but the whole of what he allows for 

of wages, before an absolute limit is his private expenses beyond the ne- 

reached, not only the employer's cessaries of life.' 
capital but the whole of what can 



172 A Plea for Liberty. [iv. 

rights are upheld by the executive, as they have been, with 
few exceptions in the colonies, combination^ Trade Unionism, 
and incessant strikes do not seem to alter permanently the 
value of what might, at any given epoch, be called the normal 
fraction representing the proportionate shares of capital and 
labour. What we shall probably see from time to time, and 
under exceptional conditions of the market, will be merely 
numerator and denominator multiplied by a higher figure, the 
value of the fraction remaining unchanged. Employers and 
industrial firms in the colonies have been now and then 
crippled, impoverished, and driven from business by sudden 
and vigorously conducted strikes. Frequently Trade Unions in 
Melbourne and Sydney have without any warning ' gone for ' 
an employer, tied by the terms of a large contract, and, as in 
the case of the original contractor for the Melbourne Parliament 
buildings, ruined him completely. In order to remedy such 
wrongs, the Melbourne Harbour Trust in 1886 proposed to 
insert a ' strike clause ' in future contracts. The Trades Hall 
Council thereupon appealed to Government to withdraw the 
contributions from the Treasury to the Trust as a punishment. 
As far back as 1885 an Australian Steam Navigation Com- 
pany was driven out of business by the action of the Federated 
Seamen's, Firemen's, Cooks' and Stewards' Union, and this 
latter, helped by allied bodies, has effectually strangled the 
development of the coasting trade, or of anything like an 
Australian ' merchant navy.' The result is that the monopoly 
of a few old-established firms in the steam coasting trade is 
not challenged ; they charge high freight and passenger rates ; 
life is extremely insecure on these routes, and sea-borne 
trade is crippled and paralyzed. It is clearly seen in the 
United States that a high protective tariff alone will not 
keep up the prices of certain staple articles of manufacture, 
in face of keen local competition among capitalists themselves. 
Cutting rates, discounts, &c., help considerably in reducing 
from time to time the prices of manufactured goods in Europe 
and the United States. But in the United States, Factory Acts 
are not enforced, while ' labour,' although restless and irrecon- 
cilable, is utterly disorganized, and, as compared with labour 



IV.] State Socialis7n m the Antipodes, 173 

in Australasia, impotent. The latter country, under State 
Socialism, seems to me to present the 'ideal' conditions for 
very rich capitalists : (i) a protective tariff; (2) vexatious and 
inquisitorial Factory Acts, based on the principle that the first 
duty of the State and the Legislature is to favour the Trade 
Unionist ; (3) an all-powerful Trade Union organization, mani- 
pulated by unscrupulous, narrow-minded, selfish, and ignorant 
men. The irresponsible despotism of the latter implies per- 
haps even more than the tariff, for it reduces competition among 
capitalists themselves to a minimum. The dread of facing the 
insatiable demands and exactions of Federated Labour, and 
the costly and harassing provisions of Colonial Factory Acts, 
more and more deter small capitalists, beginners, or ' small 
masters ' as they would be called here^ from rivalling old-esta- 
blished firms and starting new competitive enterprises ; while 
co-operative manufacturing does not of course commend itself 
to the thriftless and light-hearted Australian working-man ^. 

' Free, Secular and Compulsory ' State Education in Victoria 
is noticed by Sir Charles Dilke among his problems. The 

^ A partner in one of the two great your composing- rooni you will see a 
Melbourne newspapers mentioned to strange thing ; your type-setters, in- 
a friend one day that the Union to stead of being mostly young men, as 
which his compositors belonged was in London, New York, or San Fran- 
about to decree some increase of cisco, are mostly grey-haired men. 
wages or fresh advantages for its Were Melbourne in " the States *" the 
members. The friend replied that most intelligent and ambitious of 
he was not surprised to hear it ; and your '■'' hands " would long since have 
further counselled the employer to re- got credit and help somewhere and 
ceive a deputation from the Unionists started newspapers for themselves ; 
in question ; to grant their demands there would have been at least six 
gracefully ; in addition, to present Melbourne daily morning papers — 
each of them with a gold watch. four of them making money, and 
'But,' objected the first speaker, 'why thereby reducing your profits. As it 
the gold watch?' 'Because,' said is you have one serious rival, if you 
the other, ' the consistent tyranny have even that. Certainly as long as 
and the never-ending exactions of the Compositors' Union absolutely 
this same Union, which is ever with holds the field here, you will never 
you, are rapidly making your fortune, have another. Meanwhile yoxir type- 
by effectually keeping out of the setters expect to die type-setters, 
business every new man with capital while you and your partners will die 
enough to think of starting a news- millionaires.' 
paper in this city. If you go into 



1 74 A Plea for Liberty. [iv. 

Victorian system is described in the ' Official Year Books '' as 
' secular instruction without payment for all children whose 
parents are willing to accept it.' It is compulsory and 
truancy is punishable by fine. Sir Charles Dili^e (pp. 3^<5-3'83 
of his second volume) does no more than translate the opinions 
of two of the best-known Melbourne partisans of the Act into 
guarded language, yet the history of this experiment in State 
Socialism and the result after eighteen years' trial, ought to 
be carefully studied by legislators and by educators in Great 
Britain, seeing that it is now proposed, by various groups 
of politicians here, either to copy the main principles of the 
Victorian Education Act, No. 447 of 1B73, or to embark on 
the very policy which made that Act logically inevitable. 
Sir Charles Dilke truly says that ' Victorians are strongly 
attached to their free system ; ' that it has 'a marvellously strong 
hold upon their affections ; ' that ' centralization is not un- 
popular,' and that Dr. Pearson, the Minister for Education, 
seems to be well content with the education policy of his 
colony as compared to other colonies. Of all State Socialistic 
measures Free Education seems to be the most enticing. A 
political party could hardly choose a more attractive dole or 
bribe for the electorate. Its success, however, is cumulative, 
and it is only after some years' experience that parents 
appreciate thoroughly what it does for them. Cash outlay to 
pay for the feeding, clothing, and education of children is, to 
selfish and self-indulgent parents, a constant source of irrita- 
tion. The small sums which should go to buy bread and 
butter, boots or bonnets, for youngsters, or to pay for theii* 
schooling, may be much needed by the male parent for 
tobacco, drink, and perhaps ' backing horses,' while the mother 
constantly needs new articles of dress and amusements. Free 
Education, at the expense of that pillageable abstraction * the 
general taxpayer,' thus appeals to some of the strongest of 
modern instincts. In Victoria it would now be absolutely 
impossible for any Ministry, or political party, to withdraw 
or curtail the privileges and advantages given under the 
Education Act. The tendency is to increase them and to add 



IV.] 



State Socialism in the Antipodes. 



175 



to the cost of the system year by year ^. No candidate for 
Parliament in Victoria now ventures even to criticise the 
system lest the cry of the ' Education Act in danger ' should 
be raised against him. In Victoria, as in England, and more 
often in Scotland, rich parents do not scruple to throw the 
burthen of the primary education of their children upon their 
less prosperous neighbours ^. The excuse sometimes offered 
in the Colonies is that amalgamation of all classes of society 
in the State Schools is a democratic idea. The actual result, 
however, is that, where classes and masses do live in juxta- 
position, many State School teachers try to make their 
schools select and quasi-aristocratic. In Melbourne gutter- 
children are edged out on any pretext, and a special school 
had to be set apart there for this class — the very class on 
whose behalf the ' free ' element in the system was originally 
advocated. Popular as the Act is with Victorian town popula- 
tions, it is in the remote and sparsely-settled agricultural and 



^ Dnringthe debates on the present 
Act the late Mr. J. W. Stephen, At- 
torney-General in the Francis Min- 
istry, in charge of the Bill, declared 
that the cost per scholar in average 
attendance would never exceed &2 
per head. It is now close upon £5, 
The Elementary education vote has 
grown from £217,704 in 1872-3 to 
over £600,000 in 1887-8. One official 
excuse for lavish expenditure is that 
in rural or remote districts the cost 
of giving education of a high quality 
to all children must be far greater 
than in the towns. All the time the 
rural population steadily decreases, 
while the town, i. e. the Melbourne, 
population is now over 40 per cent, 
of the total for the colony. In 1861 
it was 25-89, in 1871 28-87, ^^^ 
in 1881 32-81. The school attend- 
ance has only grown from 184,000 in 
1874 to 192,000 in 1887. Apparently 
interest on some £1,120,000, cost of 
State school buildings, wear and tear, 
depreciation, &c., do not figure in the 
Education vote, and seem to be paid 



out of the imaginary net surplus from 
the State railways. 

^ In 1888 a Board School teacher in 
Glasgow puzzled me not a little by 
complaining bitterly of some charge 
of trifling misbehaviour against his 
pupils (out of school hours), which 
had appeared in a newspaper for 
which I was at the moment respon- 
sible. He feared, I discevered, that 
his school might lose the genteel 
cachet which it enjoyed. Some of the 
best people in Buchanan Street, he 
said, sent their children to him. 
There is, however, historical excuse 
for this trait among the best people, 
seeing that the Scottish Board School 
system is in some way 'sib' to the 
noble old parochial, burgh, and gram- 
mar school system, which for nigh 
two centuries did so much, in the 
Scottish Lowlands, to keep alive the 
true spirit of local self-government, 
and to develop, brace, and stimulate 
the best points in the national cha- 
racter. 



176 A Plea for Liberty. [iv. 

mining districts W. of long. 143, E. of long. 146, and, excluding 
Bendigo, N. of lat. 37, that the Act has the strongest hold. 
Farmers and 'selectors' who have little money to spare, 
amalgamated miners, who have killed 'the golden goose' of 
investment in mining properties by their organized idleness 
and short-sighted rapacity, are conscious that they could not 
possibly provide by co-operation, or local rating, anything 
approaching the educational privileges and luxuries bestowed 
by the central department in Melbourne. Meantime, ' the 
general taxpayer ' has indeed become a mere mathematical, 
or algebraic,, expression in Victoria ; he has apparently neither 
body, parts^ nor passions, does not cry out when he is squeezed^ 
and is not represented in the Legislature. Sir Charles Dilke 
is right in saying that educational State Socialism is popular 
in Victoria and that the Minister for Education is well 
content ^. 

On the other hand, it is alleged that the Victorian Act has 
produced the evils of centralization in their worst form ; that 
as soon as the State took over the entire cost of the system 
local control and responsibility at once became illogical and 
have now completely disappeared ; that the cost of the system 
tends to increase indefinitely, owing largely to the fact that 
the State School teachers are banded together in a powerful 

^ This philanthropic and eultxu-ed Pearson (anticipating the Duke in The 

gentleman, formerly a Fellow of Oriel Gondoliers) became a Eoyal Commission 

College, Oxford, and, according to (limited). He however contented 

the testimony of Mr. David Caunson, himself with writing a thin but in- 

ex-M.L.A., one of the greatest living teresting Essay on the education 

authorities on the history of the question in the colony, in which^ 

middle ages, may be regarded as the with rare prescience, he condemned 

Prosper Merimee of the State Social- the evils of ' payment by results.* 

istic Empire in Victoria. He entered His suggestions were entirely ignored 

politics as a Free Trader, but was by his political patrons, but a fee of 

speedily reconciled and received into £1000 was paid to him for his lite- 

the Protectionist and State Socialistic rary labours upon the thin Essay, 

fold. In the latter interest he stood Afterwards he was provided with a 

unsuccessfully for a constituency in seat in the Legislative Assembly, a 

1877. ^^ th© accession of the Pro- gentleman, whose original avocation 

tectionist party to power in that year was that of a brewer's traveller, 

the Ministry declared a Eoyal Com- having resigned his seat in order to 

mission on the Education Act to be become Librarian to Parliament, 
urgently required, and Professor 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes, 177 

Trade Union, the avowed object of which is to increase their 
salaries and privileges by political pressure ; finally, that a 
distinct religious grievance, or disability, has been created by 
the Act of 1873. Protests against some or all of these evils 
and abuses have been made by colonists of high character 
and ability — all of them, except Mr. Archer, Protestants — in 
recent years ; by the late Dr, Hearn, LL.D., Chancellor of 
Melbourne University, Mr. Andrew Harper, M.L.A., Judge 
Warrington Eogers, the present Bishop of Manchester, the Kev. 
W. H. Fitchett, Professor M^Coy ; and by critics as far apart 
in their Educational views as Sir Archibald Michie, Mr. 
W. H. Archer, and the present Bishop of Melbourne. No 
reply is made to these gentlemen by the apostles of Victorian 
State Socialism, because, from the point of view of practical 
politics, none is needed. 

The whole patronage, finance^ and administration of the 
State schools, down to the most minute details, are centred 
in one large department in Melbourne. The promoters of 
the present Act did their work thoroughly in 1872 ^. The late 
Mr. Stephen and Mr. Francis sincerely believed that it was 
their mission to create a benevolent Educational despotism, 
a Ministerial department which would mould the youth of the 
colony into one admirable form, and, among other things, ' con- 
trol the evil of denominationalism which had raised its head 
there to such a fearful extent.' Accordingly, when during the 
discussion of the Bill the principle of ' free ' schooling — at 
the expense of the State alone — was accepted, the majority in 
Parliament, logically enough, rejected Local Option, or any 
claim by districts and localities to interfere with Elementary 
school patronage, finance, or administration. Boards of Advice 
were created, feeble parodies of the School Boards in this 
country ; but they represent no fee or ratepayers, were given 
no power in 1872, and exercise none now. The only basis of 
local responsibility and control, as well as of authority, which 

^ The educational policy of 1872 victories over the French to superior 

received an impetus from the Franco- ' book-learning,' did duty in Australia 

German war ! The classic fiction, at the time, and is repeated there to 

that the German forces owed their this day. 



178 A Plea for Liberty, [iv. 

can be claimed bj local boards over the elementary educa- 
tion of the people, is local contributions, either in rates or 
school fees. On the other hand, if the State Treasurer be sole 
paymaster, Parliament insists, sooner or later, that the State 
shall be 'master' in every sense. Had the original promoters 
of the Victorian Act realised how completely it involved 
centralization, they might have shrunk from the prospect 
of responsibility for details since forced upon the Minister in 
Melbourne. The action, the inevitable action, of members of 
the Legislature has gradually brought about this latter state 
of things. Questions are asked in the Legislative Assembly, 
almost daily, as to the salaries of teachers, perhaps in remote 
districts, price of school books, supply of drinking water to 
children, repair of school buildings, &c. There is no one else 
in the colony — save the Minister of Education, who pays for 
all these things — to ask. It is quite useless for either Minister 
or Members of Parliament to refer back to local bodies ; the 
latter pay nothing and manifestly have no status, and no 
right whatsoever to interfere. Naturally, therefore, the living 
interest and the stimulus given to education by the School 
Board system in Great Britain (outside the metropolis) are 
wanting in Australia. Victorian children are passed through 
the State machine, that is all the parents know. The majority 
of the latter may not approve of State school influences upon 
the morals, character, and behaviour of their children, but the 
whole thing, school books and materials included, costs 
nothing. Evils, abuses, and blunders, similar to those which 
have grown up under the London School Board, abound, but 
in aggravated form, under the Central Educational Department 
in Melbourne — oiRcial supervision, discipline, and methods 
being of course defective in a colony where the supply of 
first-class civil servants is limited, where petty office-seeking 
is a growing vice, where the schools to be looked after are, in 
many cases, practically as remote from Melbourne as London 
is from the Shetland Isles. The tangle of red tape, the 
unmanageable accumulation of returns, correspondence, and 
official documents, the delay, waste, and paralysis at the 
centralized Melbourne office, have been often described by 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes, 179 

responsible colonists ^ The Ministry, however, do not require 
to make any reply to such charges as these. They can 
always borrow their way out of such difficulties, and they 
know that as long as electors do not pay, electors do not care. 
In a limited electorate such as that of Victoria, the State 
school teachers' vote is a serious consideration. Although 
they have been, since 1 885, under the Public Service Act, 
which was supposed to do away with political patronage, they 
have formed a powerful Trade Union^ which meets regularly 
in conference, like the railway servants or any other labour 
Junta in the Colony, and threatens ministers and legislators. 
The principle that political influence should be used to extort 
money and other benefits for themselves from the Treasury is 
as frankly accepted and acted upon by these Victorian public 
servants as it was by Irish borough -mongers and Scottish 
* controulers ' at the close of the last century. It is said that 
in London the teachers' vote and influence are potent at 
School Board elections, and fatal to the chances of candidates 
suspected of a desire to check extravagance and waste. In 
the United Kingdom, however, it may be anticipated that 
under Free State Education the teachers' political vote and 
influence would be swamped by other, and far more numerous, 
political groups who have miscellaneous designs upon the 
Imperial Treasury. Theoretically such defects as exaggerated 
centralization at he ad -quarters, decay of local interest and 
of ' local ' control over extravagant expenditure, are not incur- 
able. They might disappear in time were it not that any 
reformers are at once met by the money barrier. Reform 
would mean increase to local burthens, and Victorian colonists, 
used to having their children educated ' for nothing,' or rather, 
at the cost of some person or persons unknown, by means of 
a financial legerdemain which has enabled the State Treasurer 
to borrow surpluses regularly in London, are less disposed 

^ After eleven years' working of number of children in average at- 
the Act it was admitted before the tendance was still a matter of guess- 
Royal Commission of 1882-4, by offi- work. Professor Pearson, in 1882, 
cials of the department, that they described the whole school census 
had never yet been able to compile system as ' confused and disorderly.' 
a trustwoi-thy school census, and the 



i8o A Plea for Liberty. [iv. 

every year to relieve the State Treasury of its tribute. Even the 
perpetuation of the religious grievance, which Eoman Catholics 
complain of so bitterly, seems to me mainly due to financial con- 
siderations. I came to the conclusion in Victoria that Roman 
Catholics are subjected to a wrong more galling, but not 
unlike that which compulsory payment of church rates 
inflicted upon Dissenters in this country. A strange state of 
things in a self-governing community, the vast majority of 
whom are of English, Scotch, or Welsh birth or parentage. 
I found a partial explanation in the action and language 
of certain Victorian politicians who supported the Koman 
Catholic educational claims in the past. The late Sir John 
O'Shanassy, one of the Conscript Fathers of the colony, and 
a splendid specimen of the old Tipperary yeoman stock, 
managed this delicate matter, and managed it badly, for 
years. Sir C. G. DuflTy managed it so much worse that 
colonists finally refused doggedly to even discuss the Roman 
Catholic grievance. Verily much can be forgiven to a colony 
which has reckoned Sir Charles Gavan Duffy among its leading 
politicians, which has learnt to know him, which indeed can 
never forget him^. But unless the action, language, and 
opinions of those who complain of wrong and ask for conces- 
sions afford clear proof that granting their demands would 
imperil the lives, liberty, and property of their fellow-subjects, 
no enlightened community should be influenced by the blun- 

^ Mr. W. H. Archer, tlie gentlest of mail, oddly enough, Mr. C. G. Duffy 

men and the most earnest advocate arrived in Melbourne. Then he was 

of the Eoman Catholic claims in Vic- presentedwith£500o. Afterwards, ac- 

toria, in a memoir of his friend, Sir cording to Mr. Archer, Mr. Duffy 'used 

John O'Shanassy {Melh. Rev. xxxi. an unlucky expression as to his being 

243), mildly, but firmly, repudiates ''an Irish rebel to the backbone and 

the insinuation that he himself was spinal marrow;"' this, it seems, 

responsible for bringing Sir C. G. made the English, Scotch, and Welsh 

Duffy to the colony. It appears that colonists angry. They did not then 

Mr. Archer wrote to the late Fre- comprehend their Mr. C. G. Duffy, 

derick Lucas, editor of The Tablet, ask- nor foresee that he would continue 

ing him to come out to Australia to for many years to draw the only 

champion the Koman Catholic cause. pension accepted by an ex-minister 

When the letter reached England in the colony, quite in a loyal 

Lucas was dead, but it was published manner, 
in the London press. By the next 



IV.] State Socialism i7i the Antipodes. i8i 

ders, follies, and excesses of the spokesmen. In Victoria it 
seemed to me the noxious virus secreted by State Socialism, 
State bribes, and State doles has already penetrated so far that 
colonists deliberately inflict a wrong in educational matters 
mainly because they have been persuaded that justice would 
cost a great deal of money. 

Roman Catholic ecclesiastics and laymen in Victoria 
submit that although the State professes to provide money 
out of the taxes for the elementary education of all Victorian 
children this money is now so distributed that they, as con- 
scientious Catholics, cannot possibly benefit by it in any way. 
As proof of their earnestness they have since 1872 expended 
nearly c^'3 00,000 in providing school buildings in which the 
children of conscientious Roman Catholic parents are now in- 
structed in religious as well as secular subjects. Some twenty 
or thirty thousand children are thus provided for at no expense 
whatsoever to the colony, the secular education given being 
quite equal to that in the State schools. The Roman Catholic 
party now propose to continue to build their own schools, to 
appoint their own teachers, subject to Government examina- 
tion as to efficiency in secular subjects, and ask for a jper 
capita grant or share of the free education vote, based, as far 
as I understand, not on the departmental rate, but rather on the 
actual cost per child under their system of instruction (about 
one-half the departmental rate) for all children who pass the 
Government Inspectors' examination in secular, or non- 
religious subjects, according to the official standard for age, 
&c. This demand is refused. The replies vouchsafed to calm 
and moderate protests from both Protestant and Catholic 
colonists differ in no way from the stock apologies put forward 
for the religious disabilities of Protestants, Roman Catholics, 
Quakers, and other dissenters elsewhere in the past. The 
' thin edge of the wedge ' argument is used. It is said that if 
Victorian Roman Catholics were given a per capita grant for 
each child duly educated in secular subjects they would soon 
demand a grant for new school buildings also. It is said 
that the Roman Catholic religion is a bad religion and inimical 
to civil and religious freedom ; indeed, Sir Archibald Michie, 



1 82 A Plea for Liberty. [iv. 

whose sensitive conscience prompted him to write one of the 
few existing pamphlets on this question, mentions the massacre 
of St. Bartholomew and the horrors of the Inquisition, and 
also quotes largely from Macaulay to prove this latter state- 
ment. What Macaulay says, and what all history teaches, 
about the effect of Roman Catholic ascendency upon human 
societies would be much to the point if it were proposed to 
give the hierarchy of that religion virtual control over the 
civil and religious liberties of citizens anywhere, but hardly 
answers the complaint that conscientious Victorian Catholics 
cannot possibly benefit from the annual education grant. 
It is said further that Roman Catholic Governments do not 
give money to Protestant schools ; also that a portion of any 
grant given to Catholics in Victoria might be sent as a present 
to the Pope, instead of being used for education ; also, that 
the alleged 'Catholic conscience' in this matter is really a 
'breeches -pocket conscience;' also, as has been said to 
Protestants who sought to establish schools of their own in 
Roman Catholic countries, that the teaching sanctioned by the 
State is very good teaching — if the dissatisfied ones would only 
think so. It is also alleged that the majority of Victorian 
Catholic parents now cheerfully send their children to the 
State schools. But that to my mind merely proved, in some 
instances, that such parents are lukewarm Catholics. The 
fact remains that a certain percentage of Victorian parents, 
rightly or wrongly, consider the anti-Christian education 
given in the State schools pernicious. If there were only fifty 
such parents in the colony a grievance would still exist under 
the Act. Apparently, also, Roman Catholic priests sometimes 
sanction the sending of children to the State schools, if no 
Roman Catholic school exists in the neighbourhood, possibly 
as a general indulgence to eat meat on Fridays is extended 
to sick or shipwrecked people, the inhabitants of beleagured 
cities, &c., but those, I think, are matters for Catholics to settle 
among themselves. Mr. Sutherland, a cultured member of the 
Unitarian body in Melbourne, has disclosed what seems to me 
the most effective arOTment aofainst the Catholic claims. In a 

Do 

long letter to the Melbourne Argus^ of April, 1885, he states 



IV.] State Socialis7n in the Antipodes, 183 

that among sensible men and women in the colony there is a 
strong but vague hostility to the Catholic claim. ' The 
object of my letter,' he says, ' is to give that consciousness a 
basis of figures and a more definite form, so that the nation at 
large may be fortified in its refusal to entertain the Catholic 
claim.' He then declares that ' if the Catholics ever succeed 
in obtaining a separate grant it would imply the closing of 
several hundreds of the smaller State schools.' I do not think 
Mr. Sutherland proved his case at all, but the vague impression 
that he might be correct in his view had a great influence 
with the colonists at the time, and has still. 

I followed this controversy closely when in the colony, 
because I marvelled to see a so-called free, enlightened, and 
progressive democracy sheepishly furbishing up at the end 
of the nineteenth century rusty weapons and rusty arguments 
of religious intolerance. After a while it seemed to me 
still more significant and instructive that the desire of the 
majority to grab all the State money going should be the 
chief reason for this rare intolerance. Shabby selfishness and 
chronic mendicancy are imperceptibly, but surely, developed 
by State Socialism. Later, there follows incapacity to do a 
single, just or liberal act. It is not denied by the partisans of 
the Victorian Education Act that if Roman Catholics should 
ever ' pocket their conscience,' as they are invited to do, and 
abandon their separate schools, an enormous sum would have 
to be at once spent on school-buildings for the children thus 
thrown upon the State, while the educational vote would be 
at least .^''100,000 a year higher. Roman Catholics thus vir- 
tually take a large amount of expenditure on their own 
shoulders, and colonists accept an alms from the denomina- 
tion whose conscientious scruples they deride. I judged that 
men and women, degraded by State and Municipal borrow- 
ing and begging, lose national self-respect altogether after 
a while \ 

1 The Report and evidence furnished mine of information on the working 

by the Koyal Commission on Educa- of free, secular, and compulsory State 

tion which sat in Victoria from early education. I do not suppose that so 

in 1882 to the middle of 1884, are a much could be learnt on this impor- 



1 84 A Plea for Liberty. [iv. 

The complaints of Eoman Catholic Educators in Victoria 
are worth noting, because the Education Act of 1873 placed 
them under much the same disabilities as Church of Enofland-, 
Wesleyan and other Protestant Nonconformist Educators 
in the United Kingdom would endure if Mr. Morley's decla- 
ration of the 21st of February, 1890 ^ were embodied in an 
Imperial Education Act. But while Mr. Morley offered, ' on 
behalf of the Liberal party,' special privileges to Roman 
Catholics and Jews in the United Kingdom, the Victorian 
Act imposes equal disabilities upon all citizens who believe 
that the teaching of the Christian religion ought to be en- 
couraged in elementary schools. 

That which some regarded as merely a graceful philopena- 
present from Mr. Morley to Mr. Sexton raised certain hopes and 
gave a certain amount of satisfaction in other directions. Pos- 
sibly the Roman Catholic hierarchy, who are well informed on 
these matters^ did see the pitfall lying behind the offer from the 
so-called 'Liberal party,' but some of the Roman Catholic clergy 
and laity in the United Kingdom must have been pleased at the 
recognition by so distinguished a catechumen as Mr. Morley 
of the claim of 'one of the great hierarchies of obscurant- 
ism^' to dispose of an educational grant from the Consolidated 
Fund as they pleased. Mr. John Morley has declared, too, 



tant subject from any other source. would amount to endowment of one 

It is unpleasant reading for Victorian particular form of religion. 
State Socialists, and after adopting a ^ Mr. Morley, speaking to Mr. 

few trifling recommendations con- Acland's amendment in favour of 

tained in the report they have quietly free education, said : — ^Our position 

ignored it. A ■precis or synopsis of I think is this, that when a school is 

the minute and exhaustive evidence intended for all it should be managed 

procured by the Commissioners as by the representatives of the whole 

well as the final ' majority ' and ' mi- community. When on the other 

nority ' reports, which are not very hand the school claims to be for the 

lengthy, ought to be available for use of a section of the community, 

members of the Imperial Parliament as for example the Catholics or the 

before ' Free Education ' is seriously Jews, it may continue to receive 

debated in this country. The Com- public support as long as it is under 

missioners by a majority of one, out the management of that sect.' 
of eleven, decided against the Catholic ^ ' The Struggle for iJiTational Educa- 

claims on the general grounds that a tion,' reprinted from the 'Fortnightly 

grant to Eoman Catholic schools Keview,'i872-73,secondedition,p.97. 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes, 185 

that the educational claims of the Roman Catholic bishops 
and priests represent * the black and anti-social aggression of 
the syllabus and the encyclicaP,' and that 'the supposed 
eagerness of the parent to send his child to a school of a 
special denomination is a mere invention^ .... of the priests.' 
Some Nonconformists, as well as the whole of the secularist 
or anti-Christian body in the United Kingdom, may also have 
rejoiced at the prospect of financial vengeance upon the Church 
of England held out by an ex-Minister. 

What has happened in Victoria shows how many of these 
hopes and anticipations are likely to be realised. I think 
there is conclusive proof that a free grant from the Con- 
solidated Fund, or from ' the State,' implies secular or anti- 
Christian teaching, and no other kind, in ^ State ' schools ; 
that it would be impossible permanently to single out one 
or two denominations and give to them a portion of such 
grant to dispose of as they please ; finally, that the secularist 
cr anti- Christian party, although actually in a minority — as 
they always have been and still are in Victoria — will manage, 
sooner or later, to drive a wedge between the rival Christian 
denominations and to impose their own educational, or may we 
say atheological, ideas upon the State. 

Up to the iith July, 1851, 'the Port Philip District,' now 
the colony of Victoria, was a portion of New South Wales. 
For eleven years after ' separation ' or the grant of Autonomy, 
the educational system inherited from the parent colony was 
administered fairly well by a National Board and a De- 
nominational Board, disposing between them of the Govern- 
ment grant ^. In August 1862 the Common Schools Act, 
promoted by Mr. Pichard Heales, came into operation. It 
was administered by ^nq quasi-independent Commissioners 
of Education. The principle of the Act is alleged to have 



^ lb. p. 63. ^ lb. p. 87. per cent.; Roman Catholics, 22 per 

^ In 1851 the grant for denomina- cent. In the following year he says, 

tional schools was, according to Mr. the latter 'obtained a grant in pro- 

W. H. Archer, thus divided. Church portion to their real numerical 

of England, 48 per cent. ; Presby- strength.' 

terians, 22 per cent. ; Wesleyans, 6 
14 



i86 A Plea for Liberty, [iv. 

been secular education, pure and simple, but the Com- 
missioners at first made regulations which sanctioned the 
blending of religious with secular instruction in voluntary 
or denominational schools. The latter increased slowly under 
the Common Schools Act. In 1872, when it was repealed, 
there were 408 of them in the Colony altogether, which had 
cost some ^185,000 to erect. Of this sum the State had 
contributed .^104,000. From the first there were conflicts 
and jealousies between the Ministry of the day and the 
Educational Commissioners, who insisted on exercising in- 
dependent patronage and control. Among the community 
generally the discussion of educational problems between 
186:3 and 187:2, as well as the investigations by the Royal 
Commission on Public Education in 1866, brought out like 
views to those common in this country at the time. There 
was the same jealousy of the ascendency of 'the creeds' and 
* the parsons ' on the part of the Victorian average ratepayer, 
and the same want of cohesion and unanimity — or positive 
antagonism — among 'the creeds ' themselves who were expected 
to champion the cause of religious instruption in Elementary 
State schools. The existing Act, No. 447, of 1873, i^ chiefly 
due to Mr. (afterwards Mr. Justice) Wilberforce Stephen, a 
doctrinaire liberal, possessed of much industry, sincerity, and 
erudition, now deceased. When Mr. J. G. Francis formed a 
Liberal- Conservative Ministry on the loth June, 1872, in suc- 
cession to Mr. C. G. Duffy, Mr. Stephen became his Attorney- 
General, and an Education Bill, reforming the abuses 
alleged to have sprung up under the Common Schools Act 
of 1862, was part of the Ministerial programme. The Pro- 
testant clergy of all denominations thereupon held a series of 
conferences, beginning in July 1872, under the presidency 
of the late Bishop Perry, to discuss the situation. The par- 
tisans of secular instruction, pure and simple, consisting mainly 
of free-thinkers but reinforced by a few clergymen and sin- 
cerely religious laymen, had formed a Victorian Education 
League. It cannot be said that colonists generally were 
seriously discontented with the Common Schools Act ; but 
they shared the educational enthusiasm among Britons gener- 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes. 187 

ally at that epoch, and hoped also to get from a department of 
State a better and a cheaper system than ^ the parsons ' had 
given them. The Roman Catholic body in Victoria, who had 
even hesitated to accept State aid under the limitations em- 
bodied in the Common Schools Act, at once suspected serious 
mischief from Mr. Stephen's policy, and prepared, in secret 
as their way is, to offer what resistance they could to the 
forthcoming Bill. As happened in this country when Free 
State Education was mentioned at the beginning of 1890, the 
Protestant denominations, clergy and laymen, were by no 
means irreconcilable towards what they believed to be the 
Free State Educational ideas of Government. In 1872 it was 
not understood how thoroughly Mr. Stephen intended to 
secularize Victorian education. Actuated by that spirit of 
futile opportunism, which to this day inspires the high 
strategy of so many Anglican Churchmen in the United 
Kingdom, the members of the conference of 1872 contented 
themselves with a series of moderate, neutral, and, as it looks 
now, entirely reasonable resolutions. They were unanimously 
in favour of what Mr. Morley has called * the organic prin- 
ciple of our constitution,' local control of some sort over 
elementary education. Parents they thought should have 
something to say in the choice of teachers ; the latter being 
permitted also to give religious instruction in State school 
buildings out of school hours ; while Government would 
perhaps be able to draw up a Scripture lectionary, containing 
selected passages agreeable to all Protestant denominations. 
They were willing that thenceforth no new ' voluntary ' schools 
should be established in the colony, a self-denying ordinance 
which, by the way, struck directly at the Roman Catholics. 
Two or three members of the Protestant Conference declared 
for free, secular, and compulsory State education in principle, 
arguing that religious teaching could, and ought to be, carried 
on quite apart from secular teaching, by the clergy or by lay 
helpers, instead of by State school teachers. The late Professor 
Hearn, the most profound and brilliant thinker who has 
served the colony, appears to have foreseen most clearly the 
economical objections to Free State Education, and he indeed 



1 88 A Plea for Liberty. [iv. 

predicted, in a pamphlet issued at the time, the very evils of 
over-centralization, extravagance, and abuse of patronage at 
the Central Department which the Royal Commissioners un- 
earthed ten or twelve years afterwards. The Education Bill 
was introduced into the Legislative Assembly by Mr. Stephen 
on the 1 2th September, 1872, in a speech of mammoth dimen- 
sions, yet not uninteresting reading even now, for it sets forth 
most of the sophistries and illusions which charmed educational 
enthusiasts twenty years ago. In those days Buckle was not 
yet regarded by advanced Liberals as a fossilized thinker, and 
traces of his influence crop up in Mr. Stephen's interesting 
comparisons between enlightened and well-educated French 
youth, since the Bevolution, and British youth, still in the 
trammels of 'the creeds.' Mr. Hepworth Dixon's and Mr. 
Matthew Arnold's rococo opinions about Swiss and Prussian 
education all figured at immense length in this speech and 
helped to benumb the intellects of worthy colonists^ at that 
period hovering at the summit of the well-greased slide which 
was to carry them towards complete State Socialism. Mr. 
Stephen convinced the Legislative Assembly that elementary 
education directed by a central State authority would 
effectually purge the colony of clericalism and religious 
animosities. It was his belief that in a couple of generations, 
through the missionary influence of the State schools, a new 
body of State doctrine and theology would grow up, and 
that the cultured and intellectual Victorians of the future 
would discreetly worship in conimon at the shrine of one 
neutral-tinted deity, sanctioned by the State department. 
Noticing the objection that patronage would be abused under 
his Bill, Mr. Stephen declared that no minister would ever 
'dare' to appoint teachers from political motives. A few 
years later, when Victorian protectionists and State socialists 
had made an end of Conservative ministries, this Conserva- 
tive Education Act was used by Mr. Stephen's opponents to 
pension and reward their followers, and teachers of the worst 
character and antecedents were pitch-forked wholesale into 
the State schools. 

The opposition to the Education Bill in the Assembly 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes, 189 

was half-hearted and feeble. Indeed, its various ' principles ' 
proved themselves and each other as the discussion went on. 
The ' compulsory ' principle was almost unanimously accepted 
from the first, probably because of the Prussian and alleged 
American examples. The old quibble, that education if ' com- 
pulsory ' must be ' free,' next did service. Then, it having been 
assumed that the State must be teacher, it became manifest 
that the different groups who opposed the Bill, not being 
agreed among themselves, were utterly unprepared to answer 
the question, ' which particular religion is to be taught % ' 
The only logical solution was, 'no religious teaching at all.' 
The Bill passed triumphantly through committee on the 
19th October, and came into force on the 1st January, 1873. 
Zealous Roman Catholics at once rejected the new Act. 
They refused to accept State aid on the official terms, and 
'went out into the wilderness.' And there they are still. 
But they set to work to build new schools and to provide for 
the schooling of as many children as possible ^. The Church 
of England, Presbyterians, Wesleyans, and other Protestants 
determined, on the contrary, to give the Act a fair trial ; as 
some put it, they walked straight into the trap. They gave 
up control of their schools and surrendered the buildings to 
Government, receiving compensation for valid interests, and 
have made no attempt to carry on ' voluntary ' elementary 
schools since 1873. Mr. Morley, Writing on the Victorian ex- 
periment at the time, gracefully describes what was done by 
Mr. Stephen in 1872 as 'throwing a handful of dust over the 
raging insects,' i. e. the Christian denominations. In the same 
work he quotes the saying of an opponent : — 'religion can only 



^ Mr. J. F. Hogan, late of Mel- expenses are thereby reduced to a 
bourne, writes to me, ' In a few of the minimum. Recently new scholar- 
Eoman Catholic primary schools in ships, new Inspectors and a new 
Melbourne fees are charged, but in the curriculum have been introduced . . 
vast majority throughout the colony ... In country districts a few Protes- 
expenses are paid by collections and tant children used formerly to attend 
donations ... So that practically the Roman Catholic schools, retiring 
system is as "free" as that of the during the religious instruction half- 
State. The religious orders are now hour. But this is becoming rare.' 
largely employed as teachers, and 



190 A Plea for Liberty » [iv. 

be taught in elementary schools by the lay master. If taught 
by the clergyman it would only be regarded as an insupport- 
able bore.' This certainly has been the experience in Victoria. 
State school teachers are heavily fined if they give religious 
instruction ' at any time.' During the last ten years earnest 
efforts have been made by Protestant ministers of religion 
and laymen to get together classes of State school children 
for religious instruction after school hours, the buildings 
being always at their disposal then. These efforts have com- 
pletely failed. Secularism, or what some call free-thought, . 
is the one creed virtually established and endowed by the 
Victorian Education Act. It may be questioned whether 
neutrality is possible in this matter; children either learn 
some form of belief or of disbelief. In the State schools, we 
are told officially, ' lessons on morals and manners are given 
fortnightly ; for the treatment of those apparently drowned 
and of those bitten by snakes, periodically.' Eclectic 
heathenism is the note of State school morality in Victoria. 
The children are however taught English Grammar, Arith- 
metic, and Geography very well indeed ; and the way in 
which they will repeat the names of all mountains, capes, 
bays, lakes — as well as of the two rivers — in Australia, 
perhaps suggests that, after all, jin de siecle heathenism 
may be '^much misunderstood.' Meanwhile the system must 
continue to be extravagantly costly : it is swathed in and 
strangled by red tape; it inflicts injustice upon conscientious 
religious bodies ; it deposes parents from responsibility and 
the teacher from the free exercise of his noble craft ; it pre- 
scribes a stereotyped form of procedure on a track where 
constant progress and free experiment are most essential. 

In his survey of the colony of Victoria, Sir Charles Dilke 
(i. 248-52) mentions the Early Closing of Shops — under the 
45th clause of the amended Factory Act (862) of 1885 — among 
' experiments tried ' not among ' problems ' of Greater Britain. 
Eut it is perhaps entitled to rank among the rapidly accumu- 
lating problems of Sillier Britain, seeing that Sir John 
Lubbock's Bill still loiters with intent round the door of 
the House of Commons. The readers of Sir Charles Dilke's 



IV.] State Socialism i7i the Antipodes, 191 

book are led to understand that in Victoria the experiment 
is a success, and that since 1886 retail shops have been 
compulsorily closed at the statutory hours of 7 P.M. on week- 
days and 10 P.M. on Saturdays, without injury to business, 
without protest from tradesmen or customers. 

The 45th clause of the Act in question ^ gave a species of 
local option to municipal bodies, and, inter alia, the power 
to ^s. the fines for selling goods after 7 P. M. Certain munici- 
palities at once exercised all the powers available to mitigate the 
impending nuisance, thereby exciting the wrath of the Socialist 
party, who promptly threw over the principle of local option 
and complained that a beneficent measure was being defeated 
by a base conspiracy. Sir Charles Dilke seems to sympathise 
with these complaints. He mentions the unfriendliness of the 
municipalities and the lowness of the fines, and adds some- 
what inconsequently, ' the light fines have been a success, for 
the publication of the names of the offenders has been suffi- 
cient.' It was sufficient in one notable instance ^ to get the 
fines paid for the offender by public subscription ; but that of 
course is not what Sir Charles Dilke means. 

^ The 45th clause permitted '■ shops the powers of local option under the 

of any particular class' (not sched- 45th clause. On the 23rd of August 

uled as exempted), 'on obtaining a following, a grocer named John Pe- 

license,' to keep open after 7 p.m. '. . regrine, in the suburb of Prahran, 

-. on a petition certified by the muni- was spotted and fined £2 7s. for 

cipal clerk as being signed by a ma- selling ' small quantities of tea and 

jority of the shopkeepers keeping such soap' after 7 p.m. The Argus next 

within .... district.' It also day commenting, in a leader, on 



gave municipalities power to fix fines. Peregrine's conviction, said, ' this, 
This power was taken away by an we believe, is the first instance of a 
amending Act, ad hoc, 961 of 1887, crime of this particular sort having 
^vhich imposed fines, from a mini- met with retribution in any civilized 
mum of I OS. to a maximum of £5. community. A medal of some inex- 
^ A Shop Assistants' League, patron- pensive substance might be struck 
ized by a few political hacks, social- to commemorate this epoch-making 
ists, and idle apprentices, finding that event.' The article wound up by 
government did not care to enforce asking, 'Are there any public-spi- 
the Act, employed agents provocateurs to rited people who will subscribe to a 
' spot ' tradespeople selling goods after fund for the payment of these abom- 
7 P.M. in the outlying suburbs, wher- inable fines ?' In a day or two this 
ever the municipalities had lacked appeal was successful, a list of sub- 
courage to follow the example of the scribers appeared in the paper, and 
Melbourne Town Council, and exercise Peregrine's fine was repaid to him. 



192 A Plea for Liberty, [iv. 

The story of the Victoria Early Closing law is worth re- 
calling. It has long been practically obsolete in the colony, 
and when it was (on that very ground) proposed in 1890 to 
enact a similar, but far more drastic, measure, the public 
appeared to have forgotten not only the details but even the 
date of the first experiment. 

Colonial Factory Acts profess to be modelled on Imperial 
Acts, but contain important variations and ^ extras.' Labour 
being well able to take care of itself is, generally speaking, 
indifferent to that legislative protection which has been 
thought necessary for European workers under their entirely 
different conditions. Yet for years prior to 1885, the 
Trades Hall leaders, anxious to have all operatives well 
in hand and under discipline, had demanded, on behalf of 
the bootmaking and clothing trades chiefly, legislation 
which would drive all outside piece-workers into factories. 
Female hands work at these ' light ' trades, and girls of 
some refinement, aged or sick people, cripples, women with 
babies to look after, &c., who dislike factory life, take work 
home. Male Trade Unionists in the Antipodes have always 
objected to female labour, being anxious to get all the wages 
paid in all trades into their own pockets. Accordingly 
a bogus outcry was raised that 'the sweating system' pre- 
vailed in Melbourne boot and clothing factories, and the 
politicians in 1882 packed a Royal Commission to solemnly 
enquire into the evils of the sweating system in a country 
where the supply of well-paid labour never approaches 
the demand. A Report containing various foolish and. futile 
suggestions duly appeared ; some of these were embodied in 
a Ministerial Factory Bill introduced, but dropped, in 1884. 
In the middle of February 1885 a dispute was worked up by 
the Trades Hall Leaders in the boot trade on this very question 
of 'giving out' piece-work. It lasted for fourteen weeks and 
was settled by arbitration and compromise, largely in favour 
of the Trade Union. In the following session the Chief 
Secretary, yearning to do something for 'the paper-collar- 
proletariat,' introduced a modified Factory Bill which, in 
addition to sops thrown to the Trades Hall Council, con- 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes. 193 

tained the Early Closing provision for the benefit of shop 
assistants, who also considered that they ought to be raised 
in the scale of humanity by the State. Hardly any attention 
was paid by the outside public or the shop-keeping class to 
the Early Closing proposal while it was before Parliament, 
Victorian citizens, modest as M. Jourdain, are not generally 
aware that they have developed such a grand institution as 
State Socialism. They leave such matters to politicians and 
geniuses. Business was not very flourishing at the end of 
1885, and small tradesmen in Melbourne, trying their best 
to make a living, and taking for granted that Members of the 
Legislative Assembly were absorbed in their normal'avocations 
of drawing their salaries, squabbling over obscure personal 
matters (absolutely uninteresting to outsiders), and fetching 
and carrying for the Trades Hall Council — paid little attention 
to the Factory Bill, while the one Melbourne newspaper which 
saw what was going to happen failed to rouse the interest of 
shop-keepers on the subject. Members of the Legislative 
Council (who are elected under a more restricted franchise 
than Members of the Assembly and get no salaries) insisted 
on tacking the principle of local control on to Early Closing 
when it came up to them and would probably have rejected 
the clause altogether if tradesmen outside had known at first 
what they found out subsequently and had made some vigorous 
protest. The Bill quietly slipped through both Houses in 
December and came into operation — after the triennial elec- 
tions for the Assembly were over — in March, 1886. Early 
Closing of shops got a fair trial — for a week. That was quite 
sufiicient. The powerful City Council which rules in Central 
or ' Greater ' Melbourne as it is called, worthily represents 
many of the noble and ancient traditions of local self-govern- 
ment. It is independent of the politicians and the dominant 
class, too wealthy to require to sponge upon the Treasury and 
strong enough to do its duty. A few days after the ' Silly Shops 
Act, 1885,' came into operation the Melbourne Town Council 
called upon tradesmen aggrieved under its provisions to peti- 
tion. They were all aggrieved and they nearly all petitioned. 
The hours of closing were at once extended, and to show their 



194 ^ Plea for Liberty. [iv. 

appreciation of this piece of legislative folly the Town 
Council fixed the fines at a nominal sum. One or two of the 
suburban Councils quickly plucked up courage to follow the 
example. Meanwhile the Early Closing Law remained in 
force in many districts. The results gradually developed 
were most remarkable and, as there was no precedent in 
any civilised country for a similar absurdity, unexpected. 
It was found that Early Closing did not operate alike in 
any two districts ; even at different ends of the same street 
it produced quite different results. It would, indeed, have 
been as reasonable to prescribe one uniform class, style and 
quality of goods for shops in all quarters of the city as to 
prescribe a uniform hour for ceasing to buy goods. In the 
fashionable parts of Melbourne, for example, the Act had no 
direct eff*ect whatever, for the large shops there always closed 
at 5 o'clock; the class of customers who dealt with them, 
living in the suburbs, all went home about that hour. It 
was discovered that many of the assistants in fashionable shops 
kept small shops themselves in the suburbs, which practically 
did no business before 7 p.m. It was discovered that closing at 
7 in some of the suburbs really meant, to large retail drapers 
and grocers, closing at 6, because all their assistants went to tea 
in relays at the latter hour; six to seven was in short the 
'off" hour. Female servants, who in Melbourne patronise 
the shops extensively, began to find that they could not get 
out in the evening to make their purchases ; by the time 
they had cleared away and washed up the dinner or tea 
things the shops were closed. A large number of small 
retail tradesmen of course kept no assistants, doing the whole 
work themselves. 'Friends of Man' and Socialists had 
defended the Early Closing law on the plea that the down- 
trodden assistant wanted to improve his mind at night and to 
attend lectures and classes ; but if there were no assistant 
at all in the shop, his or her mind could hardly be improved ; 
still the shop had to close. Business men, clerks, artizans, 
&c., at work all day in Melbourne, began to find out that 
by the time they got to their homes or lodgings in the suburbs, 
had their dixmer or tea and strolled out to make purchases, or 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes. 195 

even to get their hair cut, the shops were all closed. This 
class was obliged to lose half an hour from their work in the 
middle of the day to do their shopping in Central Melbourne. 
A vast amount of trade was therefore at once transferred 
from the suburbs to the shops in the centre of the town. 
It was discovered that a number of poor people — washer- 
women, dressmakers, casual workers — as a rule did not bring 
back work, or get paid for it, till late in the evening ; when 
they had money wherewith to do their small shopping, they 
found shops closed. As the Australian winter drew in, the 
streets, unlit by the lamps in shop windows, were dismal and 
deserted. The ' exempted ' tradesmen ^ began to find to their 
surprise that customers would not even deal with them when 
the streets were half dark ; one shop, it appears, in some way 
brings business to another. It had been necessary expressly 
to prohibit exempted tobacconists, chemists, &c., from selling 
stationery, cutlery or groceries at night, after the stationers', 
cutlers', and grocers' shops were shut. Mr. E. G. Fitz-Gibbon, 
the Town Clerk of Melbourne, stated, a few months after the 
Act came into operation, that he had received hundreds of 
letters from small suburban tradespeople complaining that 
they were being utterly ruined by it, and similar results 
were described in the Legislative Assembly, without contra- 
diction, in July 1890. Meanwhile the local municipal bodies 
one after another put the various powers given to them by 
the 45th clause into effect. A Shopkeepers' Union, (after the 
mischief was done,) commenced a vigorous agitation. This 
was met by a counter-agitation, comprising mass-meetings, 
processions, rioting, breaking the windows of large shops, and 
cowardly violence on the part of young loafers belonging to 
the Political Early Closing League and the Shop Assistants' 
League. A great meeting of the latter had been held in the 
Town Hall just before the Act came into operation, at which 
one of the least ' serious ' members of the discredited Govern- 
ment of May 1877, as well as the notorious Dr. Rose, 

^ Chemists, coffee-liouses, confec- and news agents, were exempted 
tioners, eating-houses, ' restaurants, under schedule 3. 
greengrocers, tobacconists, booksellers 



196 A Plea for Liberty. [iv. 

M.L.A., and a popularity-hunting gentleman, who was just 
then weaning a new religion, made soul-ful orations. Never- 
theless Government hesitated to enforce the Early Closing 
law, almost from the first. It gradually dropped into disuse, 
and has long remained a dead letter in the colony. It was 
remarkable that some few tradesmen approved of and sup- 
ported it all through ^. They devoutly held the socialistic 
doctrine that the public might be, and ought to be, dragooned, 
by a paternal Government, into shopping at certain hours ; 
not at the hours which suited customers but at the hours which 
suited indolent shopkeepers. The majority of Melbourne 
shop assistants, mostly young fellows born in the colony, 
seemed to have grasped the root principle of State Socialism 
thoroughly, namely that the Legislature ought to provide 
what Sir Charles Dilke calls a ' beautiful national existence ' 
for them, and that it was to the State, rather than to their 
own exertions, that tradesmen's assistants ought to look for 
success, wealth, and comfort in life. 

During the last twenty years professional office holders, paid 
legislators, half-educated dreamers and enthusiasts in Austra- 
lasia, have attempted to satisfy these new and vague longings ; 
to enact the part of a State socialistic ' stage uncle' towards the 
democracy there ; but have never had sufficient thoroughness 
or daring to carry out socialistic or coUectivist maxims and 
theories of government and society — maxims and theories 
which, at all events, are consistent, precise, and of logical 
obligation, if once we grant the socialist's premises. State 
Socialism in the Antipodes has therefore been a hybrid affair ; 
the tentative experiment of men who hoped to do partly, and 
without committing themselves too far, what thoughtful 
socialists and coUectivists tell us they can do completely, 
if we will only give them a free hand. Experiments in crypto- 
socialism, tried upon a society at base, free, commei'cial, 
modern, English, would long ago have broken down on the 

^ In June, 1S90, the suburban mu- law. 1200 small shopkeepers had 

nicipality of Hawthorn petitioned petitioned in favour of the Bill of 

the Legislative Assembly to enact a 1S85. 
' really ' compulsory Early Closing 



IV.] State Socialism in the Antipodes. 197 

financial side had it not been that the legendary repute of those 
lands for natural wealth, such as gold, wool, a fruitful soil and 
a fine climate, has tempted investors in Europe to fling their 
money at the heads of Australasian borrowers. Latterly, as 
the frightful cost and necessarily unproductive results of State 
Socialism became apparent to Colonial ministers, they have, to 
prevent a collapse of the whole thing, been driven to apply for 
ever-recurring loans in Europe — on false pretences. Sir Charles 
Dilke does not see the pretence, or is silent about it. The tone 
of his book, where State socialists and the despotic Colonial 
proletariat are in question, is one of deferential subserviency, 
seasoned with half-genuine admiration, recalling those third- 
rate fashionable novelists of fifty or sixty years ago, who 
afiectionately described the births, deaths, marriages, and 
occasional foibles of our ancient aristocracy. As to the money 
lent or the credit extended by persons in this country to 
Australasian governments, financial institutions, and private 
traders, it may perhaps some day be worth the while of a 
*■ Council of Colonial Bond-holders ' to enquire into the nature 
of the ' securities ' which now cover those investments. In 
one sense it is true that Britons have lent goods, rather 
than cash, to Australasian colonists, always on the implied 
understanding that the latter will send us back exchange- 
able utilities in return — as soon as the reproductive public 
works become productive. Public works constructed on 
State socialistic principles, unfortunately, never do become 
productive ^ Australian colonists send to the foreigner fewer 
and fewer goods or utilities each decade ; instead^ reams of pro- 
missory notes. Whether this system of one-sided free trade be 
destined to last for a long time or a short time, certain it is 
that it has already wrought profound — but, I trust, not irre- 
parable — injury to colonists themselves. Victorians of the new 
generation have, seemingly, come to believe that the real source 



' I know that it is the private opi- vanced by the State to local Irrigation 

nion of two of the most experienced Trusts, under the vaunted State Irri- 

members of the late and present Vic- gation scheme, must be ultimately re- 

torian Ministries that the whole of the pudiated by the localities in question, 
money (some £1,000,000) already ad- 



198 A Plea for Liberty. [iv. 

of wealth is in Lombard Street, rather than in the soil and 
climate of their superb fatherland. The subtle poison of State 
Socialism appears to be hurtful to workers born in the colony 
especially. Their fathers roughly held that man, standing 
face to face with reticent Nature, is duty-bound to ask himself, 
' How much is in me ? how much in my opportunities % ' and 
thenceforward to fight his very best to vanquish difficulties, 
perhaps in the end wrenching fame, wealth, and comfort from 
the circumstances surrounding him. Such_, as we know, was 
the old pioneer spirit which for a while opened up a bright 
and noble destiny for the colony. In that kind of struggle often 
the prize won was not so good a thing as the lessons learnt 
in trying to win it. State Socialism to-day in the Antipodes 
seems to me to preach to willing disciples the despicable 
gospel of shirking, laziness, mendicancy, and moral cowardice. 
The further consciousness among all classes there, that tri- 
umphant and popular State Socialism depends for its exist- 
ence on absorbing money from abroad, without reasonable 
prospect of ever being able to repay it, seems to me bad also. 

Charles Fairfield. 



THE DISCONTENT OF THE 
WORKING- CLASSES. 

EDMUND VINCENT. 



TEE mSCONTUNT OF TEE 
WORKING-CLASSES. 

Childken in the nursery are chidden for discontent, but 
there is a discontent of gi'own men which has in it something 
of the divine element. If all men were able to satisfy con- 
science and ambition by doing their duty in that state of life 
into which it had pleased God to call them, civilization would 
advance with but tardy steps. It was no culpable discontent 
which induced George Stephenson to engage his mind upon 
things foreign to his duties in the Tyneside colliery, which 
led the first of the Herschels to prefer the study of the stars 
to service in the Hanoverian Guards. In truth, there are many 
species of discontent. There is that which is the spur of 
ambition, which leads men to strive for better things, which 
causes them to rise in the social scale ; there is that which 
crushes them into dull and hopeless apathy; there is that 
which renders them prone to grumble at a fate which they 
do not attempt to improve by making themselves too good 
and too strong for it, which makes them prone to jealousy 
of their neighbours, which renders them ready to suspect 
that the inferiority of their position and the degradation of 
their surroundings are the results of injustice and of oppres- 
sion. In the discontent of the working-class all these 
elements are present in varying proportions. The better and 
more skilled workman strives to raise himself by cultivating 
his skill; the unskilled labourer's discontent shows a larger 
measure of jealousy, albeit he too has his honest ambitions. 

The discontent of the unskilled labourer is the material 
15 



202 A Plea for Liberty, [v. 

upon which the agitators, roughly described as socialists, who 
have been largely responsible for recent disturbances in the 
labour market, exercise an increasing influence, and the object 
of this paper is to inquire in what sense of the word these 
men are socialists. Then comes the question whether the 
unskilled sections of working- classes follow these men because 
they are socialists or simply because they are useful in the 
struggle for higher wages, and whether the working-class 
do or do not relish socialistic legislation when it enters into 
their lives and sensibly curtails their liberties as individuals. 
Last comes the question whether the methods adopted by 
the so-called socialists are of a character which can be 
tolerated in any well-regulated community. And here let 
me say by way of preface that the word socialist is used not 
in a scientific sense, but to denote a class of men who call 
themselves socialists, whom other people call socialists, whom 
the writer, for his part, would much prefer to call professional 
agitators. 

The field of survey is conveniently narrow. London is the 
centre of socialism in England ; disputes between labour and 
capital in and about London have been, to a certain extent, 
but to an extent more limited than is commonly supposed, 
used by the socialists for their own purposes ; and the London 
socialist leaders are but a few in number. They are Messrs. 
Burns, Hyndman, Champion, Tillett, and Mann, and, perhaps, 
Mr. Cunynghame Grahame. Of these Mr. Burns is far and 
away the most influential, and, in a paper which aims to be 
practical, his character and his beliefs must be reserved for 
particular notice. Mr. Hyndman, sometime of Trinity Col- 
lege, Cambridge, law- student, newspaper-correspondent, and 
author, is a more cultivated man than Mr. Burns, and under- 
stands better than he the theoretical principles of socialism. 
But Mr. Hyndman is not a man of influence. Mr. Champion, 
once an ofijcer in the army, is a man of some education and of 
considerable business ability — he was of great service during 
the Dock Strike in this respect — but he is no orator, and 
suffers in the opinion of those whom he addresses, not only 
here but in Australia, by reason of a suspicion, not altogether 



v.] The Discontent of the Working-Classes, 203 

ill-founded, that he is not of their class. Moreover, he has 
a habit of giving moderate counsel, -which rendered him 
unpopular at the end of the Dock Strike, and during the Gas 
Strike, and has produced a similar effect in Australia. Tillett 
is the comedian of the group, a man with some capacity for 
organisation, a speaker who can hold a popular audience. 
But he is lacking in education and knowledge, and not a 
man of solid weight. Mann is a ferocious orator, calling 
himself a socialist, whose occupation consists in stirring up 
class against class. Untiring and energetic, ready for any 
quantity of work, careless as to the results which his speeches 
may produce, he is the most dangerous of them all. Both 
Mann and Tillett have recently, in the matter of the grain- 
porters' dispute, shown that, in extreme cases, they recognise 
the value of moderation. Mr. Grahame, who is nothing if he 
is not a socialist, has no following in the East End, and is not 
always welcomed by the leaders of agitation : for example, on 
a certain critical Saturday during the Dock Strike, when a 
manifesto, calling for a general cessation of labour had been 
issued and not withdrawn, Mr. Grahame shouted to the mob, 
* Ke volutions are not made with rose-water.' On that very 
evening he received from the head- quarters of the strike com- 
mittee an intimation that his services were no longer required. 
He was a nonentity ; he was ordered to go away and to place 
himself out of reach of doing mischief. He went off like to a 
child which had been scolded. He had to learn early, as 
every man who engages in active socialism must learn sooner 
or later, the first lesson of slavish obedience. Two other 
working socialists. Dr. and Mrs. Aveling, may be mentioned. 
They are cultivated socialists of the revolutionary order, ready 
at any time to make speeches, to keep accounts, to frame 
placards and manifestoes for the agitators ; but they are not 
persons of commanding influence. No apology is offered for 
these brief character sketches, for, if the writer's view be 
correct, the man's personality commands the following no 
less than the creed. Indeed, the rude socialism of the men 
who call themselves socialists is in itself somewhat chaotic, 
nor, until quite a recent date, has there been clear evidence 



204 ^ Plea for Liberty, [v. 

to show how much influence was exerted by the men them- 
selves, how little their socialistic views were accepted, how 
easily, when the simple and unsocialistic desire for an increase 
of wages desired free play, they and their crude socialism 
were thrown aside. 

The prominent figure of the group is that of Mr. John 
Burns. He is the life and soul of that which, for the lack of 
a better name, may be called the practical socialism of London, 
the socialism of action as opposed to the socialism of the 
library. 'If ever I cease to be a Socialist,' he said in the 
course of the Dock Strike, ' I shall be a Conservative.' The 
probability is that he has never been a theoretical socialist at 
all ; that he has never analysed his creed so as to discover 
whether one article of it is consistent with another. His 
views are not sufficiently defined nor capable of scientific 
definition, but for all that he is a notable and a powerful 
personage. It has been the fashion to describe John Burns as 
a charlatan ; but no greater mistake, no more foolish blunder, 
has ever been made even by men who, living out of the world, 
presume to pass judgment upon the men who live in the 
world. Let men who, prone to pronounce impetuous judg- 
ments, and ready to impute mean motives, describe such a man 
as Burns by the words trickster and self-seeker, take their 
Carlyle to heart, reading particularly his dissertation upon 
Mahomet; let them remember that in the autumn of 1889, 
John Burns held 100,000 men at his beck and call ; that when 
he speaks in Hyde Park thousands assemble round him while 
other orators are deserted, and they will refrain from charging 
with insincerity a man who has many faults and some virtues, 
a man who is before all things absolutely sincere. For our 
part, using the words of one who was in his time a keen and 
not over kindly judge of human character, 'We will leave it 
altogether, this impostor hypothesis, as not credible ; not 
very tolerable even, worthy chiefly of dismissal by us.' 

John Burns has all the faults which are natural to a man 
of implacable zeal, imperfect education, and undisciplined sym- 
pathies. His life has been passed among the working-classes ; 
he knows the hardships of their life and the vices which they 



v.] The Discontent of the Working-Classes. 205 

practise ; he is quite as prone to dilate upon their sensuality 
as upon their grievances, to rebuke as to incite. The fault of 
the man is that he has read too much and yet too little ; that 
he has been taken with the notion that he has a mission to 
fulfil ; that he has gone to work without giving due thought 
to the methods of working, without sufficiently considering 
the results which his acts may bring about. Trained as a 
working engineer, imperfectly cultivated, but yet having a 
strong taste for culture, to which he is able to give spasmodic 
indulgence, he preaches a doctrine which is a curious mixture 
of Socialism, Communism, Collectivism and Trade Unionism. 
Ignoring the rule that men are by nature not equal but un- 
equal, a rule of which he is a strong example, he believes in 
an essentially Socialistic Trade Unionism which aims to crush 
individuality and to equalise the earnings of strong and 
weak, wise and foolish. His object in life is mainly to 
improve the position of the working- classes, and the im- 
provement at which he aims, justifying the means by the 
end, is a real improvement. He would like, and he rarely 
omits an opportunity of making his desires plain, to see 
his fellows more sober, more pure, more enlightened; we 
are all of the like opinion, but we are not all imbued, as 
he is, with a trust in humanity which is almost touching 
in its simplicity. He believes that a working-class with 
more leisure would show a keen desire for self-improvement ; 
he thinks that a working-class with higher wages would 
spend its surplus earnings in obtaining the means of educa- 
tion, in providing comforts for the homes in which the 
wives and children have to live, and to be reared, would 
altogether tend to become more divinely human and less 
deplorably bestial. He does not know that the discipline 
which men undergo in winning these advantages for them- 
selves is more valuable than the things gained, is the neces- 
sary guarantee that the advantages shall be properly used. 
Therefore he aims to raise wages generally, and to shorten 
hours of work by all and any means. At the same time 
he has no fear of bringing about the destruction of trade — 
it may be that he hardly understands how delicate a plant 



2o6 A Plea for Liberty. [v. 

trade is, and his view may be summarised by saying that 
be thinks the masters to be perfectly capable of taking care 
of themselves. This is a quaint creed, unreasonable and illogi- 
cal ; a creed which the experience of men contradicts, since it 
is found that in times of prosperity the collier of the Midlands 
and his neighbour the potter buy champagne and bull-dogs in 
preference to the cheapest of literature ; that the wives of gas- 
stokers have been heard to complain of the eight-hour shift, as 
opposed to the twelve-hour shift, on the ground that it gives 
the men more leisure for spending their earnings at the 
public-house, and leaves them less money for domestic pur- 
poses ; and that, as a plain matter of fact, trade is easily driven 
away from a port, especially from a port such as London, which 
is not altogether conveniently situated. But the creed, chaotic 
as it is, is held by Mr. Burns with undeviating sincerity, and 
it explains his actions. In him we find, in these later days, a 
man who will support legislative interference with the hours of 
labour, and legislative regulation of the conditions and of the 
remuneration of toil ; a man who will join in the direction of 
any and every labour movement or strike of which the avowed 
object is either to raise wages or to drive the labouring com- 
munity within the limits of a militant Trade Unionism; a 
man who will join heartily and make his influence felt in 
promoting any and every movement, measure, or scheme, 
which appears to be likely to lead to an improvement of 
wages, to an amelioration of the conditions and to a diminu- 
tion of the hours of toil. He is, in fact, a socialist with 
variations. 

In the course of the recent labour movements — in which 
the agitation among the police is not included, since the police 
laughed at the efforts of the social democrats to interfere in 
affairs outside their scope — the writer has enjoyed abundant 
opportunities of seeing the so-called socialists at work. They 
were the life and soul of the Dock Strike ; they were repulsed 
by the blind leaders of the blind during the Gas Works strike ; 
they led the men at Silvertown to their ruin ; they promoted 
and encouraged the miserable affair at Hay's Wharf; they 
had a considerable share in the organisation of the Eight-hour 



v.] The Discontent of the Working-Classes, 207 

Demonstration in Hyde Park, and they attempted to thrust 
themselves upon the parties to the recent railway dispute at 
Cardiff. These movements are of importance, because the 
fii-st of them was the beginning of a chapter in English 
History which is not yet closed, nay, has threatened of late 
to be written in terrible characters ; because, through them all, 
and in spite of their differences in character, the so-called 
socialists pursued their aim with undeviating purpose. 

The Dock Strike was, at the outset, a revolt against 
conditions of toil which were intolerable. In the year 1889 
the Directors who were in nominal control of the mass of the 
London Docks found themselves, not by their own faults but 
through the mistaken policy of their predecessors^ in a position 
of great difficulty. They were weighed down by a burden of 
debt from which no financial magic could relieve them ; they 
were at the mercy of their creditors ; the capital value of 
their property had been greatly reduced; they were in the 
position of a manufacturer who, having enlarged his buildings 
and increased his plant to meet a trade which was expected to 
grow, has found that the trade has diminished steadily. Eut 
this was not the worst feature of their position. The system 
upon which the work at the Docks was done was, and had 
been for many years, the worst conceivable. The permanent 
staff of labourers was small ; the main part of the work at 
the Docks was systematically performed by casual labourers. 
There was little picking or choosing at the Dock gates ; there 
was no inquiry into character as a preliminary to employment ; 
and employment, at a small rate of pay^, it is true, but still 
at some rate, was almost always to be obtained. Discharged 
servants, convicts released from prison, agricultural labourers 
thrown out of work, militiamen when their training was over, 
in brief all the men who, either from fault or misfortune, had 
no settled occupation, knew that at the Dock gates there 
was always a fair chance of obtaining something to do. The 
inevitable result followed. Year after year the stream of the 
reckless, the incapable, the unfortunate men, the men who had 
been failures, flowed steadily towards the East End of London, 
and the condition of their lives grew worse and worse. There 



2o8 A Plea for Liberty. [v. 

were more men to work than before and, if anything, less 
work required to be done ; the wage-fund was spread over an 
increasing number of mouths and bodies. Meanwhile the 
congestion of the population caused the rents of houses and of 
single rooms, however dilapidated, to rise rather than to fall. 
Sanitary considerations, never held in much respect by the 
poor, were utterly neglected. Over-crowding, squalor, poverty 
and immorality continued to increase without check. The 
wages, when they were obtained, wei"© insignificant, but it 
is not here contended that they did not amount to an adequate 
remuneration for the work done. On the contrary, it is 
asserted that the work done by the average dock-labourer 
was barely worth five-pence, let alone six-pence, by the hour 
to the dock-owners who employed him. Those who accused 
the dock-owners of hardness of heart, because the labourers 
could not earn enough to support life adequately, forgot 
that it was the irregularity of the work rather than the 
inadequacy of pay for work done which caused the misery. 
In short, there was too little work and there were too many 
men to do it. The fault lay in the system which had encou- 
raged a population of men who could not earn enough to 
support themselves in decency to assemble and to multiply in 
the East End. 

The result was that in the summer of 1889, Burns, Mann 
and Tillett found in the waterside districts an undisciplined 
aggregation of individuals living from hand to mouth, accus- 
tomed to walk upon the verge of starvation, discontented with 
a lot which could not satisfy any man, passing an existence so 
miserable and squalid that they had nothing to lose. It was 
no very difiicult matter to stir this population into rebellion, 
and the only troublesome part of the business was to organise 
the mass of individuals into one body. How the Dock- 
labourers Union was formed, how the stevedores and the 
lightermen, in other words the skilled labourers and the 
monopolists, made common cause with the 'dockers,' how, 
eventually, the members of the Joint Committee of the Docks 
were coerced into something near akin to total surrender, into 
making concessions which were larger than their responsi- 



v.] The Discontent of the Working-Classes, 209 

bilities -warranted — these and like matters are foreign to the 
present purpose. More interesting is it to observe that the 
leaders of the agitation, while they were careful never to advo- 
cate and never even mention legislative socialism, were never- 
theless compelled, not only to teach, but also to enforce the 
first principle of communism, which may be taken to be that of 
equality, not natural but artificial. Trade Unionism of the new, 
that is to say of the militant species, succeeds by subordinating 
the individual to the class. The foundation upon which it 
rests is that the strong man shall earn no more than the weak ; 
and to this principle the dock-labourers, as a class, ofiered no 
opposition. They objected vehemently to piece-work, to that 
payment by results which rewards the industrious and the 
sturdy workers, and leaves the idle and the weak to their fate : 
they cried out for one uniform rate for all workers. Later in 
time, as we shall note shortly, the ' dockers ' practically 
repudiated all the socialism underlying this principle. But 
even here there is room for doubt whether the mass of the dock- 
labourers accepted the principle of equality upon its merits, 
since the contract system has one inseparable fault in London 
and elsewhere. The foreman, gafier, or head-man of a gang, 
has always the opportunity of swindling his subordinates. He 
rarely loses it. 

The coercion which the members of the Union used upon 
other labourers — and with a great deal more effect than ought 
to have been permitted in a civilised community — was essen- 
tial to success. The idea underlying it was only pai*tially 
socialistic, but it was the natural outcome of socialistic spirit. 
* Ex hypothesi,' the leaders would say, ' the Union represents 
the true interests of the workers. Sequitur that it is the 
duty of every worker to be a member of the Union. We will 
enforce that doctrine by preventing non-Unionists from going 
to work.' The whole doctrine and the manner in which it 
was carried out were but amplifications of the principle that 
the individual must be subordinated to the class ; if he accepted 
his slavery willingly, so much the better for the class ; if he 
rebelled against it, so much the worse for him. Of intimi- 
dation, of the open and physical kind, some instances were 



2IO A Plea for Liberty. [v. 

detected ; but it was an open secret, and a fact thoroughly 
understood by both parties to the struggle, that much intimi- 
dation existed in concealment. Men able and willing to work • 
were oppressed with a vague and mysterious terror that, if 
they worked, they would be made to rue the day. It may 
be answered that there was no evidence to justify this terror.. 
The answer is that the working-men, who knew their own 
class, felt it ; that although willing to work and spurred by 
hunger, fear stopped them from stepping into vacant places. 

It was no matter for surprise that speaker after speaker 
should institute comparisons between the lot of the rich and 
the poor. ' The rich man rolling in his chariot,' ' the popping 
of champagne corks at the Dock House' — vide the 8taT^ 
erroneously, passim — were naturally brought into contrast 
with the lot of the starving dock-labourers. Such comparisons 
are the weapons with which the agitator fights ; but the 
feeling to which these comparisons were addressed was nothing 
more than that vague discontent with existing conditions, that 
desire to become rich by acquiring the property of other 
people, that jealous feeling of injustice which is always to be 
found in the lowest scale of society. At ordinary times the 
ashes of this jealous discontent do but smoulder ; but they are 
always there, and the agitator with his windy speech blows 
them to a white heat. It is a part of his regular business. 
Neither, if the thing be looked at dispassionately, is the 
permanence of this discontent a matter for wonder, nor the 
thing itself a mere silly feeling which can be argued away. 
The lot of him who is born in the lowest scale of society 
is hard; it is easier to persuade him that he has been defrauded 
of his opportunities, than to convince him that he has missed 
them ; to those who would fain reason with him, speaking of 
' Laws ' of political economy, of supply and demand, and so 
forth, he answers that he knows no laws save those which 
man, who made them, can alter. The appalling ignorance of 
the people, the readiness with which they accept statements 
and arguments of glaring absurdity, renders them an easy 
prey to the agitator. The agitator cries out for education. 
He may be well-assured that in proportion to the knowledge 



v.] The Discontent of the Working-Classes, 211 

of a man are his desire and determination to work out his own 
destinies, to argue rather than to fight, and that if culture 
ever does obtain a firm hold upon the working- classes of 
England, the result will be diminution in the number of 
strikes, increase and improvement of profit-sharing schemes, 
and the extinction of the agitator's craft. Among the better 
class of the working-men the agitator is even now a nonentity. 
We have gone rather far from Mr. Burns, but it must be 
remembered that he had lieutenants who were more iofnorant 
and less scrupulous than himself. In the matter of omission, 
however, he and his lieutenants were at one. Rarely, indeed, 
in those days did they allude to the possibility of legislative 
interference between labour and capital. Never did they 
suggest a 'limitation of the hours of labour. From time to 
time Mr. Burns would deliver himself of a fiery exhortation 
to the people, would allude, almost in the words of a recent 
preacher of note, to the 'carnal, low-lying marshes of sen- 
suality ' in which they lived, would speak to them hopefully 
of the millennium in which they would have more leisure for 
improvement of themselves so that they might be better 
husbands, better parents, better citizens. But Mr. Burns and 
his satellites were very well aware that the hope which buoyed 
up the people was that of obtaining more money, and that 
mere love of socialistic theories went for nothing ; so Mr. 
Burns and his friends made a species of compromise, and 
salved their socialistic consciences by urging that the hours of 
work to be paid for at ordinary rates should be few, and the 
hours of work to be paid at extra rates should be many. Given 
a certain quantity of work to be done and a limited number 
of men to do it, in proportion to the shortness of ordinary 
hours and to the number of ' over-time ' hours, will be the 
increase in the wages of the earner. With regard to other 
socialistic measures, projected and effected^ it will be con- 
venient to speak later ; it will be enough to say here that^ 
during the Dock Strike, it would have been in the last degree 
imprudent to enunciate the principles of an Eight-hours Bill. 
Your casual labourer at sixpence an hour would like the 
legitimate day to be as short as might be, and the overtime, 



212 A Plea for Liberty. [v. 

at eight-pence, to be long ; but the principle of the Eight-hour 
movement eliminates overtime altogether: to advocacy of 
that purely socialistic principle a mixed crowd in Hyde Park 
will listen ; but the moment it is seriously threatened numer- 
ous sections of the working- classes, as the Trade Union 
Congress showed, are up in arms. A very recent incident 
in the history of the Dock Labourers' Union shows how little 
the dock labourers realise the principles of socialism. The 
socialists helped the dock labourers to victory in August of 
1889. Twelve months later the socialist leaders, under com- 
pulsion from below, announced that for the future admittance 
to the Union would be rendered more difficult. In short, they 
attempted to create a monopoly of work in the London Docks 
for the 22,400 London members of the Union. This, of course, 
is not socialism, but its very opposite, selfishness. 

The gas- workers affair, in which the London socialists were 
not allowed to play any part, was never a strike in any accu- 
rate sense of the word, for the simple reason that the would-be 
strikers were replaced without much difficulty. The ener- 
getic policy of Mr. George Livesey converted men who said 
they were out on strike into men who were out of employ- 
ment, and all the talk of the necessity of arbitration or the 
possibility of it, all the well-meaning efforts of cardinals and 
ministers to interfere in the matter, were entirely futile. There 
was nothing to arbitrate about, no mediation was possible ; 
the outgoing men were men who had been gas-stokers, who 
knew how to charge a retort or to stoke a furnace, and that 
was all. Their best chance of becoming gas-stokers again 
was to seek employment elsewhere. It is necessary to 
impress this point, although it is foreign to the immediate 
purpose of this paper, because Mr. Livesey has been much 
misrepresented. He has been spoken of as a merciless man 
who would not yield an iota, whereas in fact he was a merci- 
ful man, albeit strong of purpose, who having at last accepted 
a challenge to fight, took without a moment's delay such 
measures that, while victory was certain, retreat was im- 
possible. The world did not know at the time what the 
series of provocations had been ; it did not know that con- 



v.] The Discontent of the Working-Classes, 213 

cession after concession had been followed by demand after \/ 
demand, that the men, acting upon the orders issued by the 
executive of a Union, which was and is by the confession 
of the secretary (see the January number of Time) purely 
militant, had embarked upon a policy of aggression ; that 
they were asking for more than was reasonable. It has 
learned this now. It must also be well aware that the 
objection of the leaders of the Union to the profit-sharing 
scheme, which, on the face of it, was a scheme of socialistic 
tendencies, in the best sense of the words, was due not to 
any suspicion that it would be worked unfairly, but to a 
knowledge that it must have the effect of checking the policy 
of restless importunity upon which the existence of the 
Union and their prosperity as leaders depended. But it is 
said that Mr. Livesey openly stated his intention of crushing 
the Union and of destroying the men's right of combination. 
As a matter of fact, Mr. Livesey made no such statement, 
but there is not a particle of doubt that he did mean to 
take a course that would result incidentally, but none the 
less inevitably, in the destruction of the Union, and that 
from the public point of view he would have been entirely 
justified in aiming to crush the particular Union to which 
he was opposed. He saw, he must have seen, that this 
Gas- Workers' and General Labourers' Union was purely and 
undisguisedly a confiscatory engine in everything but name. 
The difference between it and the established Unions may 
be easily stated. The older Unions, presided over by men 
having some knowledge of political economy and of the con- 
ditions of trade, have a defined policy. They desire, when it 
is possible, to improve the position of the working-man ; 
in times of commercial prosperity they will insist, using his 
obedience to them as a weapon^ that he shall have what they 
consider his fair share of that prosperity ; in times of com- 
mercial depression they will help him and, in effect, they 
perform many of the functions of a friendly society. Ad- 
mission to such Unions is a privilege not lightly to be 
obtained. This policy is stigmatised as degenerate by the 
secretary of the new Union. His policy and that of his 



214 A Plea for Liberty, [v. 

Union is that of the daughter of the horse-leech ; it is a 
policy of continual importunity. The new Union cares 
not whether men are ill or well paid ; it is ever ready with 
a fresh demand. Concession does but whet its appetite ; it 
claims for labour the whole of the profits made by labour 
and capital combined ; it aims to be the absolute dictator 
of the conditions of toil, to say who shall work and how' 
much he shall receive. And this, be it observed, was the 
Union which grew from that which Burns, Tillett, and Mann 
created. Its development in the direction of greed shows how 
little the socialistic theory of life affected the dock-labourers 
and their fellow-unionists. This was the Union which Mr. 
Livesey aimed to crush, and it is here deliberately said that 
the endeavour so far as it succeeded — and it did succeed to 
the extent of setting the South Metropolitan Gas Company 
free — was entirely to be justified. The public were largely 
interested in the result of the conflict inasmuch as the 
position of the Gas Company was such that its shareholders 
could not entirely lose their money, until the increase in the 
cost of labour was such that men ceased to consume gas. 
Mr. Livesey therefore was a trustee, and the public were his 
cestuis-que-trustent. He had a duty towards his men, a duty 
to see that they were reasonably paid; but he was under 
an obligation no less paramount to see that the public was 
not imposed upon, as it would have been if a firm front 
had not been shown to the Union. The Union would have 
coerced him, if it had been able to do so, into complete* 
neglect of the obligation to the public. 

Enough has been written to prove that the New Unionism 
which has been at the bottom of all the recent troubles in 
London, adopts the confiscatory articles of the socialistic creed. 
Some of the founders are sincere and enthusiastic, if not well- 
informed, socialists ; but the bulk of its followers only care to 
use the socialists as means to securing higher wages ; others, 
it may well be, have personal objects in view ; some, while 
they think they are sincere, do not mind combining the pursuit 
of their own interests with that of the principle which, more 
or less honestly, they believe to be just. That is not the point. 



v.] The Discontent of the Working-Classes. 215 

It is more worthy of notice that the principle which under- 
lies the militant Union is the principle of socialism. In 
the first place, the individual is subordinated to the class ; 
in the second place, the class desires to obtain the whole of 
the. profits which are derived from capital and labour com- 
bined. In other words it desires to confiscate capital. 

Meanwhile, it is to be observed that, wherever the working 
classes are brought into contact with legislative socialism as 
an actual fact, they invariably rebel. The greater part of 
the socialistic statutes of recent times are simply hateful to the 
people whom they were intended to benefit. The enforce- 
ment of cleanliness^ of sanitary regulations and such matters, 
is attended with the greatest difficulty as the promoters of 
' model dwellings ' have found to their cost^ because there 
are no people in this world more sensitive than the working- 
classes of this country to encroachments, real or fancied, upon 
their liberty. The proverbial saying that the Englishman's 
house is his castle does but emphasize the fact that there is 
nothing more hateful to the average Englishman than inter- 
ference. He loathes the inspector and the official, but the 
inspector and the official are the inseparable accidents of the 
socialistic community, and every socialistic measure which is 
passed into law brings into birth new officials and new 
inspectors not only of houses but of persons. It is idle for 
Parliament to enact that children shall be vaccinated, that 
children shall be educated, that children shall not be set to 
work while they are of tender age, to formulate rules sup- 
posed to prescribe the minimum number of cubic feet of 
air allowed to each person in a house, the minimum of 
sanitary conveniences and so forth, unless Parliament also 
sends somebody to see whether any attention is paid to its 
commands. Yet the people who are despatched upon these 
errands are universally detested ; indeed, it is not more un- 
pleasant to be a tax-collector than an inspector of nuisances. 
It is only after socialist measures become law, or when they 
threaten the interest of an intelligent class, that those whom 
they afiect realise the position. Of this an excellent example 
has lately been aff'orded. The Bishop of Peterborough recently 



2i6 A Plea for Liberty, [v. 

introduced a Bill affecting the liberty of the working-class 
with regard to the insurance of their children on the ground 
that in some instances the liberty was abused. His proposal 
received much support from the press and the sentimental 
public, but it created such a storm of indignation among the 
working-class that in all probability nothing more will be 
heard of the measure. Again, not many months have passed 
since a meeting in support of the Eight-hours Movement 
attracted a huge crowd of more or less enthusiastic persons 
to Hyde Park. There need be no hesitation in saying that 
the measure contemplated by the promoters of that meeting 
would, if it ever became law, involve the greatest possible 
amount of interference with the liberty of the working-man 
and his freedom of contract. There are twenty-four hours 
in the day; it is proposed, to put the matter plainly, that 
no working-man should be allowed to sell to his employer 
more than eight hours of those twenty -four ; that the re- 
maining sixteen hours must be spent in compulsory idleness, 
or as the enthusiast would put it, in cultivated leisure. It 
is the firm opinion of the writer that if that measure ever 
became a part of the law, it would, within a year, be held 
so intolerable by the working-classes that Parliament would 
be compelled either to depart from the practice of centuries 
and eat its own words by an immediate Act of repeal, or to 
stand by and see its orders ignored. The textile trades have 
found this out, but great numbers of the people support 
this utterly despotic movement now and will, very likely, 
continue to support it until they find themselves writhing 
under the pressure of a law which they have themselves 
helped to create. For the present, they are reminded that 
the hours of toil are long ; they are frightened with idle 
tales to the effect that their lives are shortened by excessive 
toil, whereas in truth the working-man's day is not nearly so 
long as that of the busy lawyer, or the journalist, the doctor, 
or the active clergyman. But they are not told, and all 
but the more intelligent omit to remember for themselves, 
that in a world which is hard and practical, a world in 
which buyers, whether of work or of things manufactured, 



v.] The Discontent of the Working-Classes. 2 1 7 

will give that wliicli the thing bought is worth to them 
and no more, a diminution of the hours of labour involves 
an inevitable diminution of the earnings of labour. Nor 
will they realise this until it comes home to them in the 
shape of bitter experience. 

In conclusion upon this head let the opinions set forth in 
the foregoing words be summarised. The working-classes, 
especially the lowest among them, the men who have least to 
lose andf most to gain, are not averse to the confiscatory side 
of socialism ; nay, finding that socialism at the outset does tend 
to improve their position, they will honestly and in good faith 
proclaim themselves socialists. They would be glad to earn 
more and to work less. So would every man upon whom the 
curse of Adam has fallen : and the vision which is presented to 
them is that of a golden age, in which the least possible amount 
of work shall be rewarded with the greatest possible amount 
of pay. On the other hand, they bitterly resent all laws which 
are socialistic in their tendencies, that is to say, all laws 
which interfere with their individual liberties ; but the pity 
of it is, that they rarely perceive the socialistic tendencies of 
a projected measure and the menace to their liberties which 
it involves until they feel its pressure. Then, and not before, 
they appreciate the fable of the Stork. Moreover, as soon as 
socialism has done its work of raising their wages, they desert 
it altogether. 

With regard to the legality of the methods employed by 
the socialist leaders in the course of strikes there has been 
some question ; concerning the facts there is none. Dock- 
labourers have been induced to threaten that they would 
not touch coal brought to Gardifi*, for example^ from collieries 
upon proscribed lines, and it has been announced that even 
if coal was placed on board vessels, the seamen and firemen 
would refuse to navigate the vessels. The same menaces, 
futile for the most part, but significant none the less, since 
they show the existence in outline of a vast and far- 
reaching conspiracy, have been held out in every one of the 
great disputes which have been mentioned. Mr. "Wilson's 
threats during the Dock Strike, the nefarious manifesto 
16 



2r8 A Plea for Liberty. [v. 

issued during that strike, with the view either of causing 
or of terrifying the public with the apprehension of a 
general paralysis of trade ; the threats of Mr. Wilson and of - 
an Irish agitator, representing the coal-porters, duriiig the 
gas-workers' affair ; the abortive manifesto issued to the 
carmen of London by Mann and his allies during the strike 
at Hay's Wharf; and the incidents of the recent disturbance 
at Cardiff — all these are of such a nature that nobody, 
remembering them, can doubt the design which these men, 
call them socialists or not as you will, deliberately enter- 
tain. They divide mankind roughly and inaccurately into 
capitalists and workers, and they desire to so perfect the 
organisation of labour, that whenever there is a dispute be- 
tween an employer and his men, the whole force of the labour 
of the kingdom shall be brought to bear on that dispute 
with a view to settling it in favour of the men. 

Now of these menaces, it is contended, all are distinctly 
illegal, upon several grounds. Neither carman, nor coal- 
porter, nor seaman, nor any man who is not engaged upon 
piecework, has a right to say to his employer, ' I will not 
touch these goods,' ' I will not navigate the ship in which 
they are conveyed,' unless he has entered into such a contract 
with his master as wdll save him from the consequences of his 
privid facie illegal refusal to perform the duty for which he 
was hired. In the absence of such a contract, he is liable to 
be prosecuted at the instance of his master. But it is here 
purposed to formulate, and that without much hesitation, a 
wider proposition, to wit that in the absence of such a con- 
tract the recusant men are liable to be prosecuted not only 
by their masters but by the aggrieved persons, and, in the 
presence of such a contract, not only men but masters are 
liable to be prosecuted by the aggrieved persons. Who are 
the aggrieved persons "? They are the merchants and shippers 
who, by reason of what, for the present, shall be called an 
agreement, are prevented from having their goods carried in a 
lawful manner. Now all conspiracies are agreements ; in fact, 
all agreements are conspkacies ; and of agreements or con- 
spiracies some are criminal and some are innocent. It hap- 



v.] The Discontent of the Working-Classes.* 219 

pens, Yery fortunately, that the line between the criminal and 
the innocent conspiracy has been recently drawn by the Court 
of Appeal in a recent case, the result of which is that a 
conspirac}^, even though it may tend to injure the property 
or the prospects of C, is innocent, as between A and B^ if 
it is calculated to result in benefit to them. This doctrine 
has been questioned, and will be tested in the House of 
Lords, since it renders the denotation of the words ' innocent 
conspiracy or agreement' wider than it has ever been. It will 
certainly not be extended. The inevitable inference from 
it, whether it be correct or too wide matters not, is that a con- 
spiracy between^ (Coal-porters Union) and ^(Seamen and Fire- 
men's Union) to the injury of G (the South Metropolitan Gas 
Company) is criminal, even though it be entered into with the 
view of doing service to D (the gas-stokers). In short it is 
believed that the simple law of the matter is that, in the case 
of a strike, a Union which is a stranger to the dispute has, 
being an aggregation of individuals, a doubtful right to sub- 
scribe to the strike fund, but no riorht whatsoever to 2:0 out of 
its way to injure the employers concerned. 

Let us go away from technicalities and look at the morality of 
strikes. Small matters may be passed by. No human being in 
his senses really thinks that anybody has a right to intimidate, 
by word or deed, the man who offers to take work upon terms 
which the intimidator has refused. No reasonable man can 
think that the Unionist has a right to say to his master, ' You 
shall not employ a non-Unionist,' or to make things unpleasant 
for the non-Unionist if he is employed. Some things must 
be taken as postulates, and amongst them are the propositions 
that a man has a right to take such work as may be offered to 
him upon such terms as he can obtain, and that an employer 
has a right to offer terms of employment at his discretion. It 
may be that the employer may offer less than will support the 
man, whereas he could afford to support him and still make a 
profit. In such a case he is cruel, unjust, wicked ; but in a 
world which becomes more and more practical, it is impossible 
xo conceive a community the laws of which would refuse to 
recognise and support the right of free contract in relation to 



220 * A Plea for Liberty. [v. 

adult human labour, which would deprive the working man of 
freedom in the use of the only capital he possesses, his sturdy 
body and muscles ; and it is needless to point out that, if 
there existed a law regulating wages, nothing would be more 
simple than to evade it. There have been such laws in the 
past ; they were consistently evaded : there is neither rhyme 
nor reason in passing laws which cannot: be enforced. If a 
law be passed to the effect that the writer shall not work more 
than so many hours per day, and shall not receive more than 
X nor less than y for his work, he will engage, given a demand 
for his services, to work precisely as long as he pleases, and 

to take on occasion xy or - . 

y 

It would be idle to deny the absolute right of the indivi- 
dual, or of the members of a given Union, to strike when 
they please, A strike, that is to say, a strike brought about 
by formal giving of notice, and not by sudden refusal to 
work, may be foolish, may even be wrong from the point of 
view of the wives and families whom the men are bound to 
support, but cannot in any advanced community be made 
punishable at law. We must allow men to take their own 
measures for the improvement of their own position so long 
as they do so without disturbing the public peace, and, if 
they are punished, it must be for disturbing the peace or for 
combinino' to disturb it, not for combininoj to further their 
own interests, whether wisely or foolishly. 

This Union of Unions, indefensible as it is at law, is a 
thing which cannot long be tolerated in a civilised com- 
munity. Let us examine this chronic conspiracy of which 
manifestoes and speeches from representatives of men not 
concerned in this or that dispute are the only sign. It is 
hardly an existing fact ; it is something more than an idea. 
(Since these words were written the Federation of Labour, 
which is the Union of Unions, has made great strides to the 
front.) It represents in fact the determination of various 
men, not entirely without influence among the working- 
classes, that whenever employer and employed are at variance, 
.the whole force of the employed in the kingdom, and for aught 



v.] The Discontent of the Working-Classes, 221 

we know in the civilised world, is to be brought to bear upon the 
employer ; that he is to be boycotted until he has been driven 
into submission; that other masters are to be coerced into 
helping in the process of boycotting. Now this determination 
comes, in the first place and manifestly, from a desire upon 
the part of agitators to use the most effectual weapon at their 
disposal^ and it is based, since there is no other possible 
foundation for it, upon the idea that Labour and Capital are 
constantly at war with one another, that there is a distinct 
line and opposition of interests between the classes and the 
masses. It is unnecessary to show in detail the errors of this 
idea ; to point out that without the aid of the mind which 
planned a railway, the men who found the money to lay it, and 
the directors who watched over its destinies afterwards, there 
would have been no room for engine-drivers, stokers, plate- 
layers, guards, brakesmen, signalmen, porters, and all the rest 
of them, and that the case of every industry is analogous. 

ISTor is war between capital and labour a real or a permanent 
thing. It may very safely be said, even in this era of agitation 
and strikes, that in spite of the endeavours of the Tilletts, the 
Wilsons, and the Manns to induce men to believe that they 
are being ill-treated, the men who are contented with their 
employment and with the rate of wages paid to them vastly 
outnumber the malcontents ; but the last-named are, of course, 
the men who make most noise. Strikes will come from time 
to time, and they are genuine fights to which men apply, sadly 
but with accuracy, the language of the battlefield. Men will 
not, by wilful blindness to the truth, by blind use of inappro- 
priate terms, hasten the coming of those halcyon days when 
employer and employed shall have an equal interest in work 
done upon this or that profit-sharing principle, or when every 
dispute between man and master shall be settled by quiet 
discussion over a council table between representatives of 
either party. The intolerable incidents of the present state 
of warfare are bringing those days appreciably nearer to us. 
Numerous profit-sharing schemes have been established, and 
of these a few, notably those of Mr. George Livesey, are emi- 
nently successful. We hope to see more of such schemes in 



222 A Plea for Liberty. [v. 

the future, and of designs, such as that which the Sliding 
Scale Committee embodies, designs calculated to render strikes 
impossible and founded upon principles capable of wide appli- 
cation. 

In the meanwhile, although there is nothing in the nature 
of constant war between capital and labour, there are — and 
there is no sort of use in shutting one's eyes to the truth — 
frequent battles. It is urged in this connection that the ends 
of the State are best served when the field of those battles is 
most narrowly confined. If, to take a recent example, w^hen 
the proprietors of Hay's Wharf are at daggers drawn with 
their men, all the carmen and all the dock-labourers, steve- 
dores, lightermen, and coal-porters of London, make common 
cause with the men of Hay^s Wharf, there can be but one 
result. Masters unite and working-men learn that their 
maxim * Union is strength' is of universal application. 
If the working-men of the kingdom or of the world are 
to form themselves into one aggressive body, it is almost 
a matter of necessity that employers in their turn should be 
drivenjinto united action for defensive purposes. The results 
of collision between bodies so large must be serious ; even 
now strikes in which men are supported, not only by the 
money, but also by the threats of outsiders, in which masters 
are encouraged by men engaged in kindred enterprises to 
stifien their backs, are carried to such a length as to be 
productive of incalculable loss and to strain public patience 
almost beyond endurance. In proportion to the increase of 
the strength of the Union of Unions, and to the corresponding 
development, in spite of diversities of interest, of the spirit of 
unity among masters, is our approach to that state of warfare 
between capital and labour in which industry and commerce 
must necessarily languish and the public peace must, almost 
inevitably, be broken more and more often. The writer, for his 
part, having no confidence in the medicinal art of the statesman, 
and having a due regard for the fact that parliamentary 
efibrts to deal with questions involving the relations between 
capital and labour have failed almost without exception, 
ventures to think that out of all these evils good will, after 



v.] The Discontent of the Working-Classes. 223 

much suffering and tribulation, surely come. Let anything 
approaching to a general struggle between capital and labour 
once be fought out, and the result will not be dissimilar to that 
of the Franco-German War. The loss and the pain to both 
sides will be so great, whole districts and provinces will be so 
impoverished, that without the sanction of Parliaments and 
without the help of Governments, men and masters will 
combine to establish institutions, calling them Tribunals, 
Boards, or Committees, and to provide for them such an 
efficient sanction as shall make their awards certain of effect 
and render impossible future conflicts of equal magnitude. 
In short, although there are clouds in the sky now, there is 
room for hope. There is no danger that the Armageddon of 
capital and labour will be fought ; but there is almost a 
certain prospect of a sharp conflict all along the line. From 
it labour will emerge convinced that, on the whole, without 
capital, it is helpless, and capital with the knowledge, which 
indeed it possesses already, that labour is not to be trampled 
upon lightly. Of anything approaching to confiscatory 
socialism there is no real danger, for two reasons. Man is 
not by nature socialistic. He will, as a plain matter of fact, 
continue to love himself better than his neighbour, to seek in 
the first place his own advantage. Moreover, those who have 
some of this world's wealth, and those who are, or deem them- 
selves, a little stronger, a little more skilful, a little more 
clever than the average of their fellows, are the greater 
number of mankind. To such men, to every man who has 
anything to lose, to him who feels the dignity of honest work, 
to him who loves freedom, to him who hopes to raise himself, 
the idea of socialism, as a practical thing, is altogether odious. 
Such men feel that to surrender their liberty of action, to 
resign themselves to living upon one dead level, to lay aside 
hope and ambition, would be to relinquish their humanity. 
They will not do so, and, if they would, they cannot ; for a man 
can only rid himself of the individual spring of action, as he 
can relieve himself of his shadow, by going forth into outer 
darkness. 

Edmund Vincent. 



VI. 

INYESTMENT. 



T. MACKAT. 



VI. 

INVESTMENT, 

It is a commonplace of the older political economists that 
capital is the result of abstinence from consumption. Eut an 
important process of civilisation does not so readily lend itself 
to definition in a brief sentence. Investment, that is the con- 
version of revenue into capital, is itself a form of consumption. 
It naturally implies abstinence from other and more obvious 
forms of consumption. Thus by means of the process of in- 
vestment a man consumes a part of his revenue in acquiring, 
not food which is obviously perishable, but a machine or an 
improvement of his land, objects which are less obviously 
perishable. But the advantage thus acquired is by no means 
permanent, for a machine wears out and land loses its heart, and 
the usefulness of the expenditure, to which the name of capital 
has been given, disappears unless fresh doses of capital are 
from time to time administered. There is no such thing as 
permanence in human affairs ; there are only degrees in the 
rapidity with which things are consumed. 

These considerations, though familiar enough, are of im- 
portance in view of the socialist proposal for the nationalisation 
or socialisation of all forms of capital. We intend, therefore, 
to examine the operation of investment, or, as we may term it, 
the application of revenue to this less rapid form of consump- 
tion. The most enthusiastic socialist does not deny the use- 
fulness of capital. His grievance is the private usefulness of 
capital. It is not disputed that capital makes labour a thou- 
sandfold more productive, that mere human labour is in itself 
weak, that it only becomes powerful when allied with the 



2 28 A Plea for Liberty, [vi. 

mechanism of the inventive arts. This alliance is effected by 
capital, and results in an accelerated and increased production 
of wealth. So far there is no difference of opinion. The 
socialist, however, argues that capital should belong to 
mankind at large, to the nation, to the municipality, to a 
public body or bodies, and not on any account to a private 
capitalist. We, on the other hand, argue that capital should 
belong to him who has earned it, that he alone can make the 
best use of it, and that he alone should suffer if it is allowed 
to disappear in ill-considered ventures, or to waste away 
more rapidly than is necessary for want of due reparation 
and care ; further, that the right of bequest and inheritance 
is at once the most economical as well as the most equitable 
method for the devolution of property from one generation 
to another; and that the socialist ideal of the universal 
usefulness of capital, which is our ideal also, can be reached 
by an ever- widening extension of private ownership and by 
that means only. 

The regime under which we live makes considerable expe- 
riment in both these theories of the tenure of capital. There 
are tendencies working in both directions, and the question, 
as far as it is a practical one, is — To which side should a wise 
man lend his influence ? Reasonable men in both camps are 
averse to revolutionary methods, and are agreed that change 
must be gradual. 

An examination of the principles underlying these experi- 
ments in investment will afford matter for the consideration 
of those whose minds are still open to conviction. 

I. There is a vast amount of capital invested and being in- 
vested under government and municipal control. The post- 
oiSce, telegraphs, roads, sewers, and in many instances gas, 
water, docks^, and a variety of other undertakings, are carried 
on by capital under State control. 

II. Other enterprises are carried on by private capital under 
a State-granted monopoly : e. g. railways, canals, liquor traffic, 
gas and water, when supplied by a private company, electric 
lighting, telephones, and, if we include those industries which 
are more or less under Government regulation, such as shipping, 



VI.] Investinent, 229. 

insurance, banking, and joint-stock enterprise generally, we 
might very largely extend our list. 

III. Capital is invested privately by private persons in 
private enterprise. 

With regard to this last division, it is necessary to remark 
that even here freedom of action is much less than is generally 
supposed. It is impossible to draw the line with any pre- 
cision between private capital controlled by the State and 
capital which is freely employed. Absolutely free employ- 
ment of capital unencumbered by officious protection does 
not exist. Practically this statement may appear trivial, 
but from a philosophical point of view it has an importance 
which warrants a passing remark in explanation of our 
meaning. 

The enforcement of mercantile and other contract, the 
Government enforcement of settlements of land and personal 
property, its protection of endowments, its support of con- 
tracts lasting more than a generation, in some cases for a 
whole century, all these, intended as they are for the protec- 
tion of property, act in restraint of the liberty of each passing 
generation in this matter of investment. We are not arguing 
in favour of a repudiation of contracts. On the contrary, 
though it may appear paradoxical to say so, we have a sus- 
picion that contracts are observed with more regularity when 
their observance is not a matter enforceable at law. Even in 
the present state of society it is not difficult to adduce in- 
stances of this. Any one acquainted with business knows 
that in every trade a vast amount of business is done on 
terms which are not cognisable at law. 

It is notorious that a large amount of property is held by 
Roman Catholic trustees on secret trusts which the law does 
not recognise. We have never heard that such trusts are 
imperfectly carried out. 

The mere pressure of necessity has been sufficient to uphold 
the desert law of hospitality. 

Again, there are probably no debts more regularly paid than 
gambling debts, debts of honour as they are called, and that 
by a class of men who are not abnormally sensitive to moral 



230 A Plea for Liberty, [vi. 

considerations. Indeed the 'plunger' lias little scruple in 
cheating his money-lender and his tradesman, but as a rule he 
pays his bets. 

Under the present system, inconvenience has without doubt 
arisen from too indiscriminate an enforcement of the so-called 
rights of property ; from legislation which attempts to conserve 
to a man the administration of his fortune after his death ; 
which permits a pious founder to stamp his educational ideals 
on future generations, or to endow the professional mendicant 
for all time ; which enables a man to attach his personal 
debts to land which he has once owned, and so impede that ex- 
changeability of property which is so essential to its value. 
We suffer also from the fact that dishonest men are able to 
defy and evade the law, and the injured, knowing the law's 
delay, feel helpless. These remarks are made with a view of 
showing that a superstitious respect for laws which guarantee 
to owners too extended an authority over their property is by 
no means a tenet in our creed. On the contrary, we believe 
that under a more open system human ingenuity could ulti- 
mately devise better guarantees for appropriate social conduct 
with regard to property than at present exist, for by the 
cumbrous procedure of the law-court only the minimum of 
right conduct can be enforced, and yet men presume on its 
guarantee and enter into contracts with men of inferior 
character, because they think that, if necessary, they can 
enforce their contract. We hardly appreciate how much our 
own honesty depends on the exercise of reasonable vigilance 
by our neighbours. Under an open system more circumspec- 
tion would be necessary before making a contract ; there 
would be room also for a fuller development of trade, ar- 
bitration, and protection societies, those equitable Judge 
Lynches of mercantile life, and as a result a very great com- 
mercial value would be added to a well-earned reputation 
for honourable character. All these considerations would 
play a part in creating a weight of custom and opinion suffi- 
cient to enforce the due observance of engagements. Such 
a force is, we believe, ready gradually to take the place of 
legal compulsion, if by general consent the mechanical re- 



VI.] Investment, 231 

sponsibility of the law was allowed to become a diminishing 
quantity. 

It cannot be denied that those who seek to uphold the 
rights of property are under some disadvantage, because of 
the difficulty of identifying the rights of property which are 
necessary and beneficial. The right of property in 'slaves is 
no longer recognised, the right of indefinite settlement is 
curtailed, copyright and patentright, forms of property 
peculiar to a modern phase of civilisation, are limited to an 
arbitrary term of years. Are we quite sure that the present 
legal definition of property and its rights is adequate and 
final % It is not reasonable to think so. The rights of pro- 
perty are those which the mutual forbearance of the members 
of society finds convenient and indispensable. It cannot be 
said that these can be unerringly identified by laws which 
are for the most part the result of class legislation. The 
complete rehabilitation of respect for the rights of property, 
which seem to some to be at present in danger, requii-es 
voluntary and universal recognition of the necessity of 
property, and it might seem logical to argue that this 
recognition will only be given when the principle of non- 
intervention by the State is much more widely accepted than 
it at present is in any existing organisation of society, and 
this indeed is the view of philosophical anarchists like Mr. 
Benjamin Tucker of Boston, U.S.A. But owners of property 
who after all are the majority of the nation, are not at all 
disposed to dispense all at once with the advantage of legal 
protection for their rights ; and with the advantage, the value 
of which they perhaps exaggerate, they must also have the 
disadvantage. The disadvantage is that a certain suspicion 
is thrown on the whole institution of private property by 
reason of the officious protection given to it by the law, 
and because it has before now been detected in supporting 
rights which were contrarj^ to public morality and pubhc 
policy. This admission does not imply any doubt in our 
mind as to the justice and necessity of the institution of 
private property, but it seems to us to explain the plausible 
nature of the socialistic attack on a most useful and beneficent 



232 A Plea for Liberty. [vi. 

arrangement which, as far as experience at present goes, has 
never been dispensed with in any civilised community. 

It is, however, only fair to admit that those who have a 
leaning towards the doctrine of a philosophic anarchy, but 
who, as opportunists and practical men of the world ask for 
slow and gradual advance, should not complain too loudly 
because private warfare by means of legislative enactment 
has succeeded to private warfare by force of arms, and because 
though the weapons are changed the spirit of war is still 
present. We may resist the attack, indeed it is our duty to 
do so. We can also look forward to the anarchical millennium 
when parliamentary obstruction and the organisation of 
harassed industries and rate-payers protection societies have 
rendered the legislative brigandage of party politics impossible. 
The necessity of mutual forbearance which has induced men 
to forego the practice of private warfare may some day 
induce them to forego the practice of legislative warfare. 
It is unwise of enthusiasts to insist too much on ideals which 
are apt to bring ridicule on their cause. In real life we are 
concerned with tendencies. These are coloured no doubt by 
the ideals which we allow ourselves to cherish, but it is sheer 
madness and contrary to the evolutionary theory on which 
our whole argument rests, to ask for a full and immediate 
application of principles which require centuries for their 
development. 

We desire to see each generation enjoy to the full the whole 
resources of the country unfettered by the will of dead gener- 
ations and by restrictions of the State placed on the free circu- 
lation of capital. Progress lies in that direction, for in an atmo- 
sphere of liberty human character has an adaptability which 
will prove equal to all occasions. And in a state of civilisation 
one aspect of this adaptation of character consists in what has 
been well called the socialisation of the will. The socialist 
looks for an automatic performance of social duties under the 
compulsion of a force ah extra. We, on the contrary, contend 
that individual wills which have not learnt the adaptations 
taught by self-control, will set such compulsion at defiance, 
and that the desired result can only come from the impulsion 



VI.] Investment. 233 

of a force ah intra. This consists in the character saturated 
with the motives of the free life, and in the conviction, 
realised by experience, sanctioned by free choice and made 
instinctive by custom, that the free interchange of mutual 
service and mutual forbearance is the beneficent and yet 
attainable principle on which the well-being of society de- 
pends. If we believe the improvement of human character 
to be the true line of progress, we cannot afford to neglect 
these considerations, for they contain some of the most potent 
factors which make for the endowment of appropriate social 
conduct. 

To return from this digression to our subject — we may 
shortly sum up the forms of investment under three heads : 

(i) State investment. 

(2) Private investment under a State-given monopoly. 

(3) Private investment which, subject to the foregoing 
remarks, may be popularly described as free. 

We premise that the consumption or deterioration of capital 
may proceed from various causes. It may be in the nature of 
things. Thus the value of manure will be exhausted by lapse 
of time, a valuable machine will after a time wear out. An 
arbitrary alteration of fashion or demand will render some 
apparatus useless. Such a deterioration is a misfortune, out 
of which no form of investment can entirely contract itself. 

Again, deterioration of capital is caused by new inventions. 
Thus capital invested in stage coaches has vanished away, 
because of the superior convenience of railway travelling ; and 
every one in his own experience knows how machinery becomes 
antiquated, depreciated in value^ and at length superseded by 
new machinery. Such process of improvement brings with it 
a distinct advantage to the community. 

Now how is this question of deterioration afiected by the 
nature of the tenure of capitaU Let us take a variety of 
instances. 

One of the most usual forms of a State investment of capital 

is in a war. Our judgment as to the wisdom or otherwise of 

such expenditure will depend on our view of the justice and 

necessity of the war, a point which, for our present purpose, 

17 



2 34 -^ Plea for Liberty, [vi. 

we may leave out of sight. Obviously private enterprise 
could not conduct a war for us. Whether the existence every- 
where of bodies who are able to carry on war for us is an 
advantage or not is another question which we need not here 
consider. We accept under present circumstances the occa- 
sional necessity of war. Now expenditure on war can be 
provided out of current revenue ; it is then consumed like our 
food supplies, and there is an end of the matter. If however 
the war takes dimensions too large to be paid for out of 
current revenue, a charge is made on the revenue of the future, 
and a loan is created. As a matter of fact our national debt 
is mainly due to our great wars. In the event of a successful 
war, additional national prestige is gained by means of an 
investment guaranteed by authority, but there are no tangible 
assets to represent the investment ; it is just as much consumed, 
as if it had all been paid out of revenue. Now the loan is a 
permanent charge, as long as the nation exists or till it is paid 
off. It represents perhaps a reasonable expenditure, and we do 
not wish to criticise adversely the conduct of our forefathers 
in creating these loans. It is however necessary to compare 
this form of capitalisation with the capitalisation of a private 
man who can only derive interest and profit from his invest- 
ment so long as it represents some present utility to his fellow- 
men. When this utility ceases, even the principal vanishes 
away. Pitt's wars, and shall we say the old service of mail 
coaches, were both necessary and useful in their day. Pitt's 
capitalisation was under the guarantee of Government, and we 
are still liable for it, principal and interest. Mail coaches, their 
owners and the capital and interest involved, have long since 
disappeared without injustice to any one, and leaving no 
burden on the present generation. 

As patriots we may not grudge the liability with which the 
heaven-sent minister has saddled us ; but when we come to 
consider the application of private men's revenue, under the 
name of taxes, to payment of interest on State undertakings 
less important than the maintenance of our national existence, 
we are at liberty, without fear of being accused of want of 
patriotism, to look closely into the assets which represent our 



VI 



.] Investment, 235 



money. To do this we ought to have accurate and intelligible 
accounts. Of our imperial expenditure we know something 
mainly from commissions appointed from time to time to 
consider the inefficiency of our spending departments. But 
with regard to our local expenditure and indebtedness we 
have little or no information. It is stated in every elementary 
handbook on Local Government 'that there are difficulties 
amounting to impossibility in the way of accurately ascer- 
taining from published returns the present total amounts of 
local taxation and expenditure^.' The same authority tells 
us that the returns are much in arrear or made up to different 
dates. Comparison is only conjectural, as the same local 
authorities perform different functions in different localities, 
and the overlapping of authorities is quite chaotic. Further, 
' the capital expenditure on sewerage, on streets, on gas-works, 
and on water-supply, is not distinguished from the ordinary 
expenses of maintenance ' ; and again, ' imperial subventions 
appearing in the returns of any one year have been made in 
respect of the expenditure of the past year or years.' Chaos 
is a mild term for such a system of book-keeping. 

Now this inabihty to value its assets is inherent in a 
monopoly. These monopolies represent absolute necessities 
of Hfe, and whether the service be good or bad, the public has 
to put up with it. Competition is excluded, and the mono- 
polist can value at any price he pleases. The service of the 
Post- Office, for instance, is alleged by Mr. Henniker Heaton to 
be inadequate. He conducts an agitation in Parliament ; the 
monopolist yields to noise, reduces his terms, and charges the 
deficit to the community at large. The most perfect system 
of account-keeping by a State-trading monopoly can never be 
satisfactory, for, ex hypothesis it has entered into a conspiracy 
to protect its capital from deterioration by prohibiting com- 
petition. In the open market, where there is no monopoly, 
there is a gradual deterioration of capital by reason of the 
improvements made by neighbours. A tradesman must re- 



^ 'Local Administration' by Messrs. perial Parliament Series, by S. Bux- 
Rathbone, Pell and Montague. Im- ton, M.P. 



2 2)^ A Plea for Liberty. [vi. 

place his machinery by improved machinery or see his 
antiquated apparatus gradually become valueless. His atten- 
tion is kept fixed to this point by the sight of custom going 
in other channels. No owner will agree to acknowledge the 
deteriorated value of his plant unless ho is obliged to do so. 
Hence Government monopolies are very slow to adopt 
improvements. Each official is unwilling to admit the 
weaknesses of his own system, nor will he readily disendow 
his own knowledge and labour by accepting improvements 
which will oblige him to acquire fresh knowledge and which 
will render his present services antiquated. Competition 
compels private tradesmen to improve their ways. In a 
monopoly ther^ is no such force making for progress, unless 
we so term the blind sentimental agitation which is now 
assailing the Post-Office in favour of an Anglo-Saxon penny 
post. 

It is not easy to estimate the loss of the community through 
Government monopoly ; at best it is only a calculation of what 
might have been, if. private enterprise had not been stifled. 

We can give one or two slight but suggestive instances. 
There are still Government offices where all letters are copied 
by hand and where none of the mechanical processes which 
give an exact facsimile of the letter copied are admitted. The 
rest of the clerical work of the establishment is presumably 
conducted in the same way. This does not of course prevent 
them from hiring a man in from the street to copy a con- 
fidential document as in the celebrated Foreign Office case. 

Again, Mr. Stanley Jevons gives a curious instance of the 
slowness of Government to adopt improvement from the history 
of the Mint. In his treatise on Money ^ he states that the 
present Mint is quite inadequate for meeting the demands 
thrown upon it. ' What should we think,' he asks, ' of a cotton- 
spinning company which should propose to use a mill and 
machinery originally constructed by Arkwright, or to drive 
a mill by engines turned out of the Soho works in the 
time of Boulton and Watt ? Yet the nation still depends for 

^ Stli Edition, 1887, p. 120, the preface is dated 1875. 



VI 



.] Investment. 237 



its coinage upon the presses actually erected by Eoulton and 
Watt, although much more convenient presses have since been 
invented and employed in foreign and colonial mints.' 

In such a case one is able to detect the inadequacy by 
means of a comparison with other countries, but in the great 
majority of instances it is only possible to conjecture the loss 
sustained by the community by the absence of that com- 
petition which forces owners to increase the public utility of 
their property if they wish to maintain its value. 

Nor does the State trader escape from the difficulties which 
beset his career when he displays enterprise, as the rate- 
payers of such towns as Bristol and Preston might realise if 
they took any interest in the matter. 

The Bristol Docks account shows that for the year ending 
April 30, 1890, the Corporation incurred ' a total loss on work- 
ing Dock Estate and City Quays combined ' of ^i 8,9 1 1 4s. ^d?- 
This deficiency has to be made up by a rate in aid levied on the 
borough and city of Bristol, and accordingly ^120,360 was last 
year taken from the rate-payers. The result is that part of the 
expense of the shipping trade at Bristol is every year paid by 
the rate-payers, a large number of whom derive absolutely no 
benefit therefrom. We talk with some complacency of the 
folly of French sugar bounties and of McKinley tariffs, but 
the facts above given point to a state of affairs even more 
egregious and unjust. Either the shipping of Bristol is a 
decaying industry, and ought not to be bolstered up by 
subsidies from people living in the suburbs of Clifton, or (and 
this is the more probable alternative) a Corporation, even as 
respectable as that of Bristol, is an unsuitable body to have 
charge of such enterprise. In any case the money of the 
ratepayers is being improperly applied. 

The following particulars with regard to Preston are taken 
from an article in the Fall Mall Gazette^ 18 April, 1890 : — 
Many years ago a company called the Ribble Navigation 
Company was formed, it paid no dividends, and its shares 
became worthless. An agitation was got up to make the 

^ Published in the Bristol Times and Mirror, 15 July, 1890. 



238 A Plea for Liberty, [vi. 

town council buy up the company, improve the navigation, 
and make docks. The agitation succeeded, and ' it may be 
assumed that some of the active promoters were not wholly 
disinterested.' The expenditure was not to exceed ^^506,000 ; 
at the beginning of this year ^751,000 had already been 
borrowed, and Parliament was asked to sanction further 
borrowing powers of .^^220,000. ' The eight miles of channel 
to the sea have yet to be provided for, and the cost may be 
anything from .3£''300,ooo to <^i, 000,000, as its course lies over 
shifting sand-banks fifteen to thirty feet deep. By the course 
pursued this money must be spent, or all that has been 
already sunk has been absolutely squandered. The friendly 
societies, who feel the effect of the abnormally high death rate 
(Preston, according to the Registrar General, is the unhealthiest 
town in England), have petitioned for better sanitary condi- 
tions, but where is the money to come from with such a 
burden on the back of the town ? ' At present the resources 
of the rate-payers ' are being squandered on a wild goose 
scheme to open out the river to sea-going vessels along a 
shifting channel in sixteen to seventeen miles of sand.' 
' Certainly Preston has not been happy in its local rulers.' We 
should prefer to put it, that England had not been happy in 
allowing its municipalities to embark on such hazardous 
enterprises. 

Again, a municipality lays down millions in a system of 
sewerage. Science is perpetually preaching to us that sewage 
can be utilised, yet our towns and houses are undermined 
by inaccessible drains, which are really little better than 
elongated cess-pools. Is it a wild conjecture to surmise that 
if the experimental energy of private enterprise had been 
allowed to enter the field, our practice would not lag so far 
behind scientific knowledge on this subject? 

As it is, an enormous local debt has been created, and a 
very inadequate and unimproving service of sewerage has been 
obtained. Now if this matter had been dealt with by private 
enterprise (we do not say that it is possible, we are only using 
the case as an illustration) the capitalisation necessary for 
carrying out these works would have been made at the risk 



VI.] Investment, 239 

of private persons, who would have had to pay for their own 
failures. The community could have accepted each improve- 
ment without remorse, and the deterioration of the earlier 
systems would have been constantly and gradually making 
room for improved methods. As it is, the ratepayers are 
saddled with an enormous debt, and being monopolists, served 
not by experts but by boards whose inefficiency is notorious, 
they hesitate at experiment, and there is no automatic pressure 
put on them to acknowledge the deterioration of their property 
or to incur fresh expense in its reparation or in the provision 
of a substitute, 

George Stephenson's locomotive was preceded by that of 
Trevethick. Now our situation as regards sewage is as if 
the Government had bought up the invention of Trevethick 
and established a monopoly. The Peases would not have 
been allowed to employ Stephenson to make engines for 
the Darlington and Stockton Bailway ; and the Government, 
which had sunk its money in the comparatively worthless 
invention of Trevethick, would have effectually deprived man- 
kind of the use of the locomotive engine. 

It may be suggested that in the matter of sewage munici- 
palities have by a happy inspiration adopted an adequate and 
absolutely efficient system. It is improbable ; and we can make 
no better comment on the suggestion than to quote one or two 
passages from the Presidential address of Dr. G. V. Poore, 
M.D._, F.R.C.P., delivered in August of this year (1890), to the 
Section of Preventive Medicine at the Sanitary Congress. 
Dr. Poore has had an abstract made of the chief outbreaks of 
typhoid fever in this country, which have been reported on 
by the medical officers of the Privy Council and the Local 
Government Board : — 

' One factor is common to all these outbreaks, viz. , the mixing of excremental 

matters with water There is no doubt that whenever excrement is 

mixed with water we are in danger of typhoid. Typhoid was not recognised 
in this country until the water-closet became common. We doubtless manu- 
factured typhoid in a retail fashion in old days, but with the invention of the 
water-closet we unconsciously embarked in a wholesale business. We had 
not been many years at this w^ork before we recognised that the water-closet 
poisoned all sources of water. We have had to go far a-field for drinking 



240 A Plea for Liberty, [vi. 

water, and the result has been that as we have left off consuming the springs 
which we have wilfully poisoned, the amount of typhoid fever has somewhat 
abated. When the more remote sources get poisoned in their turn — as with 
our increasing population and our methods of sanitation they inevitably 
must — the present comparative abatement must, one would fear, cease.'' 

Such is the criticism on our present system, passed by a 
gentleman chosen by the Council of the Sanitary Institute to 
preside over their meeting. Dr. Poore proposes his own 
remedy, namely, the treatment of sewage with earth and not 
water. We are not competent judges, and will not assume 
that Dr. Poore's panacea is final and adequate, but it is clearly 
a misfortune that as a nation we have embarked on costly 
systems of sewerage condemned by so competent an authority, 
and that the position of each member of the community is that 
he is a part owner of this inadequate service, and that his whole 
interest lies in patching up and not abolishing a system which 
in all probability is inherently bad. This impotence Dr. 
Poore refers to its proper source in the concluding paragraphs 
of his paper ; l.e says : — 

' Parliament has compelled us to hand over our responsibilities to public 
authorities, with the consequence that the individual has lost his liberty and 
independence, and is drifting into a condition of sanitary imbecility.' 

A rich man who can pay to have his house drains inspected 
yearly, and who can pay for remedying defects, can make the 
present system tolerable, but to the poor the expense attending 
such a course makes efficiency impossible. 

We cannot therefore gauge the loss of the community 
arising from the perhaps necessary monopoly of sewage 
works in the hands of municipalities. 

From another point of view monopoly has its inconvenience. 
It would, for instance, be an economical, and, under proper 
management, a profitable expenditure of money^ to have 
subways under our principal streets for the passage of the 
various pipes and wires which traverse our towns. No 
public body, burdened as they all are with the discredit of 
years of unprofitable and incompetent management, dare 
suggest such an enterprise to the ratepayers. It is a difficult 
matter, and could only be efiected by first-class financial and 



VI.] Investment* 241 

engineering ability. Public bodies very properly feel that 
they cannot experiment with rate-payers' money, or even incur 
expense in setting great engineers to estimate the cost and 
practicability of such schemes. 

We have no wish to depreciate the public spirit which 
undoubtedly animates many, nay perhaps all, of our 
municipal bodies. The discredit into which after a brief 
period of popularity they inevitably fall, is due, not to 
personal considerations, but to far deeper causes. The in- 
terests confided to them are too large, they are a standing 
obstruction to the subdivision of labour and investment 
which is at the root of the efficiency of the services of civi- 
lised life. It is true that private enterprise shows a dis- 
position to organise itself on a large scale by means of trusts 
and ether combinations, but this new departure has been 
preceded by a great specialisation and subdivision of energy, 
and forms no precedent for the establishment of a great 
monopoly '"per saltuDi! 

Our most obvious and primitive wants had happily been 
to some extent arranged for before Government had been 
fully organised. Government has rarely interfered to help 
the governed in the distribution of food or in the victualHng 
of great centres of population. Consider the marvellous 
world-wide interchange of service, both of labour and capital, 
which is involved in feeding London for a single day. This 
goes on day after day and year after year without any 
difficulty, and we are so accustomed to it that we rarely 
pause to admire. All this is done without the assistance of 
Government. 

With advancing civilisation new wants became apparent ; 
the community became anxious about sanitation, about educa- 
tion, about gas, water, electric light, and a variety of other 
interests, but by this time the State was fully organised. 
Men in a hurry refused to wait for the satisfaction of their 
wants by the system of private enterprise and competition, and 
they obliged the heavy hand of the State to interfere. Thus 
it comes that interests which in a civilised community are not 
inferior in importance to our food supplies, are left as mono- 



242 A Plea for Liberty, [vi. 

polies in the hands of Government. To deal properly with the 
sanitation of a large town a vast subdivision of labour and 
management is perhaps necessary. Our public bodies are 
composed of very worthy persons, but they cannot discharge 
the functions which in a free state of enterprise would be per- 
formed by perhaps hundreds of separate purveyors of service, 
and notoriously the scientific officials of our municipalities 
are inadequately remunerated, and as a consequence the 
highest professional talent is not at their disposal. It is only 
by considerations such as these that we can estimate the loss 
which the public suffers from these monopolies. They and 
the bodies which administer them form a huge obstruction 
to beneficent applications of capital to the service of mankind. 
Capital is free to serve us in some of the most elementary 
needs of life. It cannot be dispensed with in more complicated 
matters, but it is tied about with endless restrictions and 
impediments ; it is taken from us forcibly in taxation, not 
freely and experimentally adventured ; it is spent timidly by 
a conscientious board, and recklessly by a corrupt board ; if 
badly spent it still remains a debt upon us, and we are forced 
to make the best of the bad article supplied ; we cannot 
accept the pressing offer of ingenious and scientific men who 
ask leave to try again at their own charge and risk to 
improve these most important services of civilised life. 

The matter is not without difficulty, but the present 
solution — the solution of granting monopolies more or less 
complete in so many of the most important services of life 
— is unworthy of human ingenuity and cannot be considered 
final. This perpetual forestalling of a free-trade solution has 
weakened the power of private initiative ; but if our super- 
stitious reverence for Government can be shaken, we do not 
despair of retrieving again our steps and of giving to these 
higher services of civilised life the vigour and elasticity which 
belong to the humbler primitive services which supply us 
with our food and clothing. 

Such, we believe, are the causes of the discredit into which 
local government bodies are constantly falling. It is not due 
to personal considerations. The members of municipalities 



VI.] Investment, 243 

and vestries represent very fairly the virtues and vices of 
their fellow-citizens. Many of them are persons of ability 
and position; some are retired tradesmen who, when they 
become too old to attend to their own business, are kind 
enough to occupy their declining years in the management 
of ours. Others are men still engaged in trades and pro- 
fessions. The employment given to them by their neighbours 
of free choice leaves them with some leisure on their hands, 
and, if they are public spirited, their services prove useful 
for the discharge of functions which, because of their im- 
portance, have been withdrawn from private enterprise and 
confided to municipal monopoly. Some, again, are well-to-do 
persons of good will who follow no calling. Their time hangs 
heavy on their hands, and they are sent out to get experience 
of life by assisting in the management of public business. To 
these of late years there has been added some admixture of 
first-class agitators. The whole is a fairly representative body 
rather above the average in respect of public spirit, but a good 
deal below the average in administrative ability. 

It is, in our opinion, a tactical mistake on the part of those 
who have an instinctive distrust of public bodies to abuse the 
'personnel of which they are composed. The constantly re- 
curring scandals are due not so much to the incapacity of 
vestrydom as to the impossible duties for which it is held 
responsible. 

Another Government enterprise which is not a monopoly 
has been undertaken professedly in the interest of the working- 
class. We shall be accused of temerity when we say that the 
institution we have in our mind — the Post-Office Savings 
Bank — has been a very doubtful benefit. A bank is an in- 
stitution in which men place monies either on current account 
or on permanent deposit. A banker is an expert in invest- 
ment ; he uses a proportion of his customers' balances in 
financial operations and in investment. His customers 
obtain financial assistance such as their credit warrants, and 
a considerable portion of a banker's reserves are invested in 
the businesses of his customers and of the class to which his 
customers belong. 



244 ^ Plea for Liberty, [vi. 

The working-class, however, is served by a bank which 
gives them no such assistance. The reserves of the Post-Office 
are placed in the hands of the Commissioners for the Reduction 
of the National Debt, who in turn invest them in Govern-' 
ment stock, or lend them for financing the various spending 
departments of the State. It will be said that a workman has 
no credit which would enable a banker to employ capital in 
his service. This, however, is a great misconception. We 
refer the reader to the paper in this volume by M. Raffalovich, 
and to the suggestions which he there throws out for the use of 
savings banks' reserves for promoting the erection of working- 
class dwellings. It is moreover the business of a hona fide 
banker to devise forms of security by means of which he can 
give financial assistance to his customers. 

Consider what an impulse to thrift and working-class invest- 
ment would have been created, if the Post-Office Savings Bank 
had been debarred from investment in Government securities, 
and been obliged to invest workmen's savings in assisting 
schemes for their service. This is the function of the banker of 
the middle and upper classes. It is through the legitimate 
assistance of the banker and the insurance agency that the 
proletariate of this and other countries are to be encouraged 
to pass from the hand-to-mouth life of wage-earnicg into the 
greater security enjoyed by those who rely on investment as 
well as on labour for their maintenance. 

This Post-Office Savings Bank is therefore, in this view 
of the matter, one of those 'short cuts ' to prosperity of which 
the civilised world is very full. They are admirable in 
intention, they have also their advantages in practice, but 
they forestall and prevent the higher and more useful adjust- 
ments of mutual service. They are part of the bondage on 
the free development of character and energy which, more 
than anything else, impedes the true progress of the working- 
class. 

It is satisfactory to know that the National Penny Bank, a 
legitimate private enterprise, is now beginning to make great 
progress, and to pay a dividend to its shareholders. It is to 
be hoped that its successful competition with the Post-Office 



VI.] Investment, 245 

is only the beginning of the rescue of this industry from the 
hands of Government. The sterilisation of working-class 
savings under the present system is a grave misfortune. If 
working-class banking was conducted by persons who had to 
conciliate the good- will of their customers, it would become 
more the practice to invest reserves in undertakings likely 
to benefit the working-class. It may even be possible that 
the working-class savings bank may one day be instrumental 
in promoting schemes of industrial partnership in well- 
established businesses. Co-operators are fond of talking 
of labour hiring capital, and of reversing the present plan 
of capital hiring labour. From whom could the co-opera- 
tive labourer borrow with more fitness than from the 
savings bank of his own class? Loans of course cannot be 
obtained from a bank without undeniable security, and this 
he would have to provide, but the difficulty is superable, as 
M. Raffalovich has aptly shown, by a combination of insurance 
and loan. If a beginning were made in the simpler matter of 
hoiise property, there can be little doubt that human ingenuity 
would soon extend the system to other matters, more especially 
to various forms of industrial and co-operative partnerships. 

All attempts of this kind are impossible under the present 
system of Government banks, for Government can only invest 
in its own securities. Thus the author of the article on 
the Post-Office of the United States in the E ncyclojpoedia 
Britannica points out that the United States cannot have 
post-office savings banks, because the Americans are fast 
paying off their national debt. ' It is plain,' he says, ' although 
the difficulty does not seem to have occurred to many of the 
advocates in the United States of a savings bank system, that 
to be lasting it must be founded upon a Government debt, 
a condition Avhich does not and is not likely to exist in that 
country.' 

It is obvious that the same line of argument can be applied 
in a minor degree to the monopolies granted by the State to 
private capitalists. The risk of loss is undertaken by the 
private adventurer, but if a success is made the public is at 
the mercy of the monopolist, tempered only by the expensive 



246 A Pica for Liberty, [vi. 

and incomplete protection given by the Stats. The Board of 
Trade has recently held an elaborate enquiry upon Railway 
Kates. The expense of the enquiry has been great, and the 
rates which the Board proposes to fix must be to a large 
extent arbitrary ; they have none of the cogency which rates 
fixed by free competition would have. 

It would be rash to say that greater freedom of railway- 
making for the purpose of creating more competition is either 
possible or impossible. We need have no hesitation in saying 
that, if it were possible^ it would solve a great many, at present 
insuperable, difficulties. 

Our argument is that the public has been deprived of the 
full value of railway enterprise by the granting of monopolies. 
Railway companies have been able to hold on to inferior 
machinery and to pay fancy prices for the acquisition of land, 
and they are unable to give increased facilities to travellers, 
because they are too tender of shareholders' capital inflated 
beyond its value by causes such as the above. 

If there was more freedom of trade in this matter there 
might well be ten times as much capital invested, and all of it 
represented by more efficient machinery. The experience of 
America in the matter of telephones and electric lighting 
shows that the miere fear of competition is sufficient to make 
monopolist companies reasonable. 

Generally it may be said that we have much to learn from 
^merica in this matter of monopoly. It is there that a solution 
of a difficulty, which all admit, is to be looked for. Protection 
has made the United States a dear country to live in. But, 
as has been recently pointed out, it is in some respects not 
such a dear country as it was. This fact is attributed, 
probably with justice, to its cheap system of transport. A 
railway monopoly which results in high transport charges is 
tantamount to a form of protection. An American railway 
is built and worked very much more cheaply than an English 
railway, and the evils of monopol}^ are in this respect less 
apparent. In England we hear constant complaint of the 
difficulty of transporting fish, fruit, vegetables, and many 
other articles of which the first cost is low, because the rates 



VI 



] Investment, 247 



of transport prevent their being brought within the reach of 
consumers on reasonable terms. An employer of labour in 
England and America writing to T}ie Times of October i, 1890, 
compares the English and American system^ and asserts that 
we in England have done nothing since Stephenson to cheapen 
and improve our system of inland transport. The statement 
may be exaggerated but contains its grain of truth. 

We hear numerous complaints of the congestion of popula- 
tion in great towns. Light railways are put forward as a 
panacea for the congested districts in Ireland. There are 
of course many causes which contribute to the growth of large 
towns, and undoubtedly the high price of transport is one of 
them. Human ingenuity cannot altogether abolish space, 
but, if price of transport is any criterion, it has brought 
America and India nearer to English ports than London is 
to Manchester. And why ? mainly because sea transport is open 
to free competition, and land transport is a monopoly. If it 
were possible (it may be impossible, for some difficulties are 
insoluble), to reduce largely the cost of inland transport, there 
are many large industries which could just as well be carried 
on in the country as in the town, to the infinite advantage of 
our labouring population. It is noteworthy that the country 
factory is much more usual in America than with us. Our 
policy of protective monopoly requires very careful examination 
before we sit down meekly under our present disabilities. 

Another curious point has arisen in the United States with 
regard to the railway monopoly. Trusts are arrangements 
projected by private enterprise for mitigating the evils of 
competition, for it is not here denied that there are evils in 
competition. Like every other human arrangement, trusts 
are liable to be abused, and it is alleged that some of the 
American Trusts have become oppressive, and that, in various 
trades, monopoly has been established to the detriment of the 
public at large. A leading working-class member has recently 
defended the attempt to make a Salt Trust in England, on the 
logical and intelligible ground that it was an application of 
the principles of Trade Unionism to the affairs of the capitalist. 
Free combination, so long as it respects the freedom of the 



248 A Plea for Liberty. [vi. 

uncombined, is a necessary and legitimate method for over- 
coming certain social inconveniences, and as a rule the free 
community has its own remedy if the combination becomes 
oppressive. Given a fair field and no favour, an oppressive 
monopoly unsupported by force would not last for a week ; 
it would at once be deserted and routed by indignant 
customers. 

It is very noteworthy therefore, that the principal ground 
of complaint against the Trust in the United States is based 
on the allegation that Trusts have corrupted the railway 
monopoly, and have secured for themselves preferential rates 
and even induced the companies to charge extraordinary rates 
to outside competitors. The accusation is strenuously denied 
by the advocates of Trusts. The denial, however, appears to 
amount to this, that the preferential rates were secured by the 
corporations now forming various Trusts prior to their 
amalgamation in Trusts. It follows, therefore, that if to give 
preferential rates is corrupt on the part of a Railway Company, 
the corruption dates from a period before the era of Trusts. 
At any rate, it seems to be admitted by the more moderate 
opponents of the Trust system that, but for the Railway 
monopoly and preferential rates, an oppressive Trust would be 
an impossibility^. 

Under the present system mechanical traction has been 
confined to unduly narrow limits. Its extension to the uses of 
private life ought not to be beyond the power of human 
ingenuity, and here there is room for vast applications of 
capital. M. Rafialovich has pointed out how closely the 
question of an increased and cheaper service of locomotion 
is connected with the solution of the difiiculty of housing the 
working-class. 

In the case of the electric light Government has pursued its 
usual course. It grants a monopoly but couples it with con- 
ditions intended to prevent private capitalists reaping too large 
a profit. At first the conditions were too onerous, and the 
country was deprived of the use of the electric light. We 
have many other illuminants, and it is a question whether the 

% ^ See Foreign Office Keport on Trusts, No 174, p. 72. 



VI.] Investment, 249 

public required any protection in this matter at all. The most 
obnoxious clauses of Mr. Chamberlain's legislation have now, 
at great expense and loss of capital, been repealed, and by 
degrees the electric light is coming into household use. 

The only force which can curb the pretensions of tradesmen, 
and yet at the same time act as an incentive to enterprise, is 
freedom of competition. Government can limit the division of 
profits by regulations which astute financiers can easily evade. 
But the process is apt to degrade the morals of commerce, or 
to drive the more sensitive into other fields of labour, and in 
this way to injure the interest of the consumer, who in the 
last resort has to pay for all this hampering of industry. 

But the most familiar instance of private capital doing 
business under the support of a State monopoly is the liquor 
traffic. 

In the projfer sense of the term a public house should be a 
'public house, and as much a place of amusement as of refresh- 
ment. The amount of capital employable in this trade is 
measured by the ability and willingness of the working-class to 
reward such investment. Paternal government has by creating 
a monopoly focussed all this capital on the sale of spirituous 
liquor. The workman still manages to pay for his drink, but 
his rational entertainment and his skittles can no longer be 
provided, because he has to pay perhaps eight or ten times its 
value for his glass of spirits or beer. This is not the act of 
the publican but of the Government, which attempts to im- 
prove the morals of workmen by putting a prohibitive price 
on their liquor. The result, as in most such cases, is the reverse 
of expectation. The taxes and the monopoly under which the 
poor man's caterers have to labour have been prohibitive not 
of liquor, but of rational amusement, and as a result the poor 
man is too much bound down to the one amusement which his 
protectors have left to him, namely the pleasures of strong 
drink. Can we wonder that under such a system drink has 
taken too large a share of a workman's spare time and spare 
cash? 

Every class is entitled to spend a portion of its earnings on 
amusement. Those who are able to amuse us are at present 
18 



250 A Plea for Liberty. [vi. 

as handsomely paid as any other servants of the public. The 
public entertainer of the poor has by the inordinate taxation 
of one necessary item been degraded to being the mere keeper 
of a drinking-shop, an enterprise from which many conscien- 
tious and enterprising tradesmen stand aloof. We do not 
assert that excessive drinking is caused by this monopoly. 
Excessive drinking and excessive eating are animal pleasures, 
which the civilised man soon outgrows if his opportunities of 
rational entertainment are not unduly curtailed. The poor 
man has suffered from this curtailment of the more refined 
methods of amusement, which would have weaned him from 
the coarser pleasures of appetite. The drinking habits of the 
richer classes, where drunkenness is now comparatively speak- 
ing rare, have passed through these same phases. 

We may here, as conveniently as elsewhere, say a word on 
the philanthropic employment of capital. The employment of 
purely philanthropic capital to giving a supply of the neces- 
saries of life to classes of the population at less than the 
market price is unsatisfactory. It keeps commercial capital 
out of the field, and attracts attention away from the cause of 
defective supply. In London there is a great deal of semi- 
philanthropic capital (for the most part it is now becoming 
distinctly commercial capital) employed in providing houses 
for working-people. It is not too much to say that its use- 
fulness varies inversely to its philanthropy. 

It is only a minority that can be housed on philanthropic 
terms. Commercial capital, which is plentiful but timid, is 
frightened away by philanthropic enterprise^ and the majority 
have to remain in inferior houses. 

A very apposite illustration has been given to the writer by 
a friend who is partner in a large mill business in the North. 
Some thirty years ago his firm, being desirous of cultivating 
friendly relations with their work-people, built one or two 
streets of small houses. They were wealthy people, and they 
built a class of house rather in advance of the best artisan 
house of the day. The houses were readily let to their work- 
people, and for a time answered the purpose intended. At 
the present time, however, our informant states that he does 



VI.] Jiivesiment. 251 

not think any of his own work-people live in these houses, 
which still belong to his firm. His people have found that 
thirty years have brought great improvements in the art of 
house-building, and the men who formerly lived in the prize 
philanthropic house of thirty years ago have migrated to com- 
mercially built houses, where they get hot and cold water laid 
on, baths, and other modern improvements. Now if artisans' 
dwellings were widely supplied by philanthropic effort, or if, 
with a view of serving not only a minority but the whole of 
the working-class, philanthropic investment were made com- 
pulsory and the matter undertaken by the municipality, it is 
obvious that the gradual improvement above described could 
never have taken place. The bumbles of each generation 
.would decide in what sort of houses each class should live. 
Stagnation and discontent on the one hand, or ruinous extrava- 
gance guided only by sentiment and without any economic 
principle to restrain it, and ending without doubt in a violent 
reaction, are the alternative horns of the dilemma which would 
of necessity arise in such a state of things. 

The socialists argue that Government should arrange for a 
gratuitous use of capital to each successive generation. In 
other words, Government is to organise industry, and to give 
to each labourer his due ; no charge is to be made for the use 
of capital ; superintendence and reparation of plant mast of 
course be paid for, but no one may derive any advantage 
from investment, but only from labour. Let us consider this 
proposition more closely. Each year's increment will be 
taken by the State ; each labourer will receive his wage, and 
a portion will be retained by the State for the reparation 
of capital and for making that increase of machinery which is 
necessary for the support of an increasing population. 

In fact it will be the duty of the State to capitahse a 
portion of each year's revenue. Now this superintendence of 
capital will have to be paid for. Inspectors and auditors will 
be required far beyond what is necessary under the present 
regime where most men are dealing with their own and not 
their neighbour's property. The use of capital therefore will 
not even here be given gratuitously. Further, it would give 



252 A Plea for Liberty [vi. 

rise to a perpetual dispute as to the amount of capital to be 
subtracted from the due meed of the labourer. The increment 
taken for capitalisation and for the cost of superintendence 
would be regarded as a tax, and would be paid as grudgingly. 
There would be a never-ending battle between the bureaucracy 
and the labourer. The former would naturally wish to increase 
the capital under their charge, and the labourer would resent 
all such deductions as a fraud on his claim. The fact is, that 
a gratuitous supply of capital is an absurd idea. Capitalisation 
or investment is essentially a form of consumption, and is in 
the main directed to the purpose of freeing the investor from 
the inconvenience of personal toil, in a word to labour-saving- 
If men or bodies of men labour assiduously and apply part of 
the revenue obtained from their exertion to this form of 
consumption, they only do so because they derive advantage 
therefrom. If that advantage is made to cease, this form 
of consumption will go out of fashion; if the control and 
resulting benefit of investment is taken away from individual 
men ; if the b.enefit of capitalisation only reaches them after it 
has filtered through the hands of a bureaucracy, — they will in- 
evitably identify their interest with the labourers' share in the 
division, and they will embody this view in their mandate to 
the organising bureaucracy. Man's maintenance, therefore, will 
gradually retui-n to a dependence on labour alone, and each 
day's revenue will be consumed by the labourer as he receives 
it, and application of revenue to investment will cease. Can 
one conceive a surer means of bringing about a return to 
barbarism ? 

We have now compared the value of private as against 
State investment, but we have considered it mainly from the 
side of the consumer. His wants, we have endeavoured to 
show, will be best and most economically met by a free system 
of investment wherever that is possible, and we believe 
that it is applicable to a much larger sphere than it at 
present covers. 

This, however, is a small matter compared to the influence 
of investment as a factor in producing the appropriate social 
character in each individual investor, and to this aspect of the 



VI 



,] Investment. 253 



question we now turn. Human happiness depends very largely 
on two equally necessary qualities, namely, on the individual 
energy which is able to satisfy reasonable wants ; secondly on 
the self-control which holds in check unreasonable ambitions. 
The operation of investment has an important influence in 
stimulating and informing these valuable social instincts. 

There is a threefold activity involved in the full ideal of 
civilised life. Each man is a consumer and should be a 
labourer and an investor. It will be found that our social 
troubles are caused because this threefold function is imper- 
fectly performed by large masses of the population. We are 
all of us of necessity consumers, and most of us have capacities 
for consumption far beyond what our means allow us to 
.gratify. 

The primitive means for gratifying consumption was labour; 
but with the first fashioning of Adam's spade it became clear 
that investment was a necessary complement of human labour. 
Without it labour was a poor and feeble thing. We are 
familiar with the principle of the subdivision of labour ; we do 
not always remember that this subdivision of labour without 
a corresponding subdivision of the duty of investment has 
produced a one-sided civilisation and interfered with the three- 
fold economic harmony above described. 

The consumer who is labourer only and not investor has his 
potentialities for consumption checked. The burden of sup- 
plying the complement of capital necessary to an increasing 
population of labourers falls on investors who are, by the 
service thus rendered, enabled to subsist without labour. The 
direction of this production remains with the investor, for he is 
the only consumer whose consuming power is still effective. 
His capital and other men's labour are therefore employed in 
the manufacture of luxuries which he only can purchase, and 
this one-sided form of consumption gives employment to 
silversmiths, painters, sculptors and other purveyors of the 
arts and luxuries of life, while at the other end of the scale 
the labourer has barely sufficient to eat and drink. Eich 
men might give away their superfluity, and large benefactions 
are from time to time given to public purposes. But ex- 



2 54 ^ Plea for Liberty, [vi. 

perience shows that rich men cannot get rid of their respon- 
sibility by a mere scattering of gifts. For gifts thus scattered 
too often prove mere narcotics dulling the energy of poorer 
men, and obscuring the truth that in a society not yet become 
socialistic, the duty of private investment is as paramount as 
the duty of personal labour. The desire to consume, if it be 
not debauched by public charity, should prompt an exercise of 
both functions by each member of society. It is only thus 
that a liberal interpretation can be given to the term ' reason- 
able,' when we said above that human happiness, materially 
at all events, depends on the ability of each man's energy to 
satisfy his reasonable wants. A larger performance of this 
duty of investment would lead, we argue, to a much larger 
consumption, and hence a much larger production brought 
about by an ever-increasing application of capital or labour- 
saving investment, and an ever -decreasing application of the 
less effective instrument, namely, human labour. 

Let us turn to our second proposition, that happiness depends 
on self-control as much as on the gratification of even our 
most reasonable desires. There are ambitions which are anti- 
social, and there is nothing which ministers more to their 
repression than a knowledge that honest conduct, or what we 
have termed appropriate social action, is not impracticable, 
and in fact that it is easier than an opposite course. The 
desire to consume will prompt an infirm will to an attack on 
the rights of others. But a conviction of the necessity of 
mutual forbearance, acknowledging the justice of other men's 
defence of their own, renders the road of transgression prac- 
tically narrow. The wonderful internexus of social life which 
preserves automatically by mutual forbearance each man's 
claim, has reversed for practical purposes the truth of the adage. 
The social organisation which surrounds us gives an impetus 
towards right against which only despair can make us rebel. 
But here there is no ground for despair. Progress in a free 
atmosphere will inevitably lead men to an exercise of energy 
where such a course promises success, and to self-control 
where the conditions of difficulty are at the moment insur- 
mountable. This double training of character in energy and 



VI.] Investment, 255 

self-control is the principle to which society owes all its 
nicest adjustments. 

The labourer, therefore, who wishes to improve his position 
will be impelled to investment as the necessary complement 
of his labour ; and, in turning to investment as a method of 
meeting some of the struggles of life, men's minds are opened 
to many salutary reflections. 

Men realise that the power of labour, which from a point 
of view we may term man's only inalienable capital, is 
expended by mere effluxion of time, is rendered useless by 
sickness, and disappears at death and old age. Men, therefore, 
must, if they are wise, form a sinking fund by insurance or by 
savings to replace the yearly expenditure of their labour 
capital. This desire to make ends meet has important con- 
sequences. It limits the rate at which men create respon- 
sibilities ; it promotes the application of revenue to the slower 
processes of consumption; it postpones the age of marriage, 
and has its influence on the birth-rate ; it keeps the growth 
of population automatically proportionate to the growth of 
capital. 

The first exercise of the investing instinct will be in matters 
which directly minister to the wants of the investor. Thus, 
the investments of the working-class are placed for the most 
part in their own institutions, such as Friendly Societies, Trade 
Unions, Building Societies, Co-operative Societies. This is 
the earlier stage of investment, but the full subdivision and 
mutual service of investment is not complete till investment 
passes beyond this stage. A makes boots and exchanges his 
service for wages ; then, buying a coat, he pays the wages of J5, 
the tailor who made the coat, and the reward of C, the investor 
who supplied the capital necessary to the transaction ; and, be 
it noted, B and C are possibly the same persons. If A wishes 
to contribute his full share to the social machine, and to draw 
out of it something beyond his wages, he is bound to contribute 
to the service of investment as well as to that of labour. Nor 
is there any reason to hmit the range of JL's investment. The 
tailor is not bound to invest in a tailoring business. So long 
as his investment is serviceable to the rest of the community 



256 A Plea for Liberty. [vi. 

he will be entitled to draw a revenue from it, and with this 
revenue he can reward the investors whose capital ministers 
more directly to his wants. This is the full subdivision of 
investment which we affirm to be the necessary accompaniment 
of the subdivision of labour. 

How, it may be asked, will this ideal affect the status and 
wages of labour ? 

First, we urge it is the only ideal which is compatible with 
Freedom. State regulation of labour, and State investment 
of capital may have charms for the speculative enthusiast. 
To those who have had any experience of it the regulation 
of bumbledom in all its grades is simply intolerable. Liberty 
is an essential in any elevated ideal of life. 

Next, how would it affect wages, and how would it affect 
interest and profits % 

In the first place, if there was a more general exercise of 
investment, each man would have in his own pocket a poten- 
tial strike-fund and his family and class would all, more or 
less, be in a position to help him. Wages must rule high, for 
the only limit on their rise would be the labourer's own 
interest as an investor. The investing labourer would not 
be indifferent to dividends, and the labouring investor would 
be a permanent influence in favour of liberal wages. The 
gradual acquisition of a small revenue from investment would 
do more to raise the economic position of the labourer than 
all the trade unions that ever existed, useful and beneficial 
as these have been. 

Unfortunately for the country, the primitive instincts towards 
investment in our poorer classes have been so debauched by 
our socialistic poor-law, that vast arrears of work have to be 
overtaken in the quickening of motive and the building 
up of habit. 

Nor do we think that the rate of interest and profit would 
fall. Skill and success in the application of investment would 
be more valuable functions than ever. The competition of 
capital for employment would be greater than ever, there 
would be therefore more demand for the service of the com- 
petent entrepreneur, and his wages, that is profit, would not 



VI.] Investment 257 

fall. But while the competition of capital was keener, the 
field of investment would be vastly enlarged. First, because 
every man would be interested in reducing the demand 
on human toil, and as a consequence a powerful impulse 
would be given to the adoption of labour-saving apparatus. 
The life of a machine would be much shorter, for none but 
the most modern machinery would be used. An ingenious 
and anti-socialistic writer has argued that possibly interest 
will cease to be paid, and that on the contrary men would 
be willing to pay for the luxury of deferred consumption^. 
This view overlooks, we think, two important considerations. 
It overlooks the willingness of men to pay for a rapid 
succession of labour-saving inventions, and, secondly, it over- 
looks a still more important item, the increased potentialities 
of the consumer. If consumption of necessaries and luxuries 
was likely to stand still, there would be something to be said 
for this view. But all this investment and all the implied 
multiplication of the power of labour and production is with 
a view to consumption. If we look round we see everywhere 
restricted consumption because of the unperformed office of 
investment. With increased investment there will come in- 
creased consumption. There is, therefore, a vast field of profit- 
able investment at our very doors, namely, in the application 
of capital to the uses of the poor, but it can only become 
profitable, as the poor learn by degrees the valuable duty of 
investment. 

We have attempted to show that the State cannot 
successfully perform the duty of investment for its members. 
State property is always ill-managed ; it does not disappear 
automatically when it becomes efiete ; and its universality 
would deprive citizens of the school of experience where, 
more than anywhere else, their character acquires the due ad- 
mixture of energy and self-control. 

If there is to be any legislation conveying property from 
the haves to the have nots, we sincerely trust that the con- 
veyance will be complete and final, and that as far as possible 

^ J. H. Levy, The Outcome of Indimdualism. 



258 A Plea for Liberty^ [vi. 

nothing will be left in the unfruitful paralysing tenure of the 
State. We are against all confiscation, not because there is no 
precedent for it, or because existing titles to property are 
indisputable, but because it is utterly impossible amid the 
larger proportions of modern life to redress the injustice of 
earlier times without committing fresh acts of injustice on 
a much larger scale. But even if this consideration is dis- 
regarded it would be foolish as well as knavish to entrust any 
more property than we can help to a tenure at once demoral- 
ising and unprofitable. 

T. Mackay. 



VII. 
FREE EDUCATION. 



B. H. ALFORD. 



VIL 

FBEU EDUCATION. 

As the subject allotted to me is one in which the point of 
view of the writer is a serious element for the consideration 
of the reader, it is well to state at the outset that I write as 
a Manager of some standing in charge of a so-called Church 
School. The position that many of the Managers of such 
Schools have taken up, is clearly enough stated in words 
spoken (according to the report in the Times of August 8th) 
by the Bishop of Bath and Wells. ' He said they must look 
at the question not merely in the light of their original 
opinion as to whether education was a good thing or not, but 
they must look at the position of it outside. If they succeeded 
in preventing Government from bringing forward their 
scheme, in which they proposed to safeguard the interests of 
Voluntary Schools, they might be perfectly certain that when 
a Government of a different political constitution came into 
power they would carry Free Schools without the safeguards.' 
This appears a very candid confession that the authorities of 
the Church of England (as far as one Bishop can pledge them) 
desire to avoid discussing the principle of Free Education, 
because, if they were forced to come to an adverse judgment, 
they might imperil the fortunes of a certain class of schools. 
But would it not be more patriotic to enquire into the 
advantages or disadvantages for the nation of Free Schools, 
and abide by the decision — rather than determine beforehand 
upon risking any national disadvantage, in order to maintain 
a form of education which might not finally be secured even 
at the price of such a surrender ? 

My purpose is to keep the vexed questions as between 
school and school, government and government, out of sight, 
and to consider — 



262 A Plea for Liberty, [vii. 

Firstly: What can be urged in favour of Free Education 
on broad grounds? What answering arguments can be 
suggested? 

Secondly : What radical objections may be taken to the 
whole proposal ? 

I. And, as a preliminary, it were well to ascertain what 
financial change would occur on the adoption of Free 
Education in England. I take the Balance Sheet of my own 
schools as a basis of calculation. They contain about 300 
children, and last year (i 888-1889) cost £600 to maintain — 
or £0, a head. This sum was raised in the following propor- 
tions: £2,S^y o^ i^^- 8^- ^ head, reached us out of taxation in 
the form of Government grant : ;^ 150, or los. per head, were pro- 
vided from voluntary sources: ;^200, or 13s. 4cZ. a head, came 
in the shape of pence from the parents. The proposal now is 
to throw this last item upon the locality, to be raised there in 
addition to any existing School Board rate. But the change 
will involve a further displacement : the item of voluntary 
aid, which at present meets one-fourth of the expense of our 
Schools, could not be relied upon to remain at that level. 
Even enthusiasts for denominational teaching will be 
pressed by the increased rates, and lessen their subscrip- 
tions ; the lukewarm will probably drop them altogether ; 
so that the alteration will not merely bring about the 
transfer to the rates of parents' payments : it will also bring 
about a loss of at least a third of the subscriptions, which will 
have to be made up out of rates. So that the probable 
Balance Sheet of the future, in a ' freed ' Church School cost- 
ing .^600 to maintain, will run as follows — By Government 
grant, £2^0 : from Voluntary sources, ;^too : by Kate, ;^25o : 
or, in other words, the demand upon the pocket of the nation 
in respect of denominational schools alone will be doubled. 
This educational tax for 1 888-1 889 reached two millions: 
the addition to the School Board rate therefore threatens to 
reach another two millions, as soon as the schools are ' freed ^.^ 

^ Any other scheme which may be may serve to conceal the cost to the 
proposed laying the expense on the public, it will not diminish it. 
taxpayers rather than the ratepayers 



VII.] Free Education. 263 

For this large increase of burden to be laid on the commu- 
nity the following are among the principal reasons urged — 

(i) That Free Education is the logical sequence of the 
Act of 1870, and that, wherever there is compulsion, there 
ought to be payment in respect of the things required by the 
State. 

The arguments which start from postulating certain un- 
written rights of the citizen are highly effective in popular 
oratory ; as when, for instance, Mr. Chamberlain asks, ' of the 
two chief obligations put on parents, why should vaccination 
be given, and education sold?' but such appeals have to face 
this historical fact, that the legislature has not recognised 
their d 'priori validity: each case is considered on its own 
merits : distinction is made between claim and claim ; which 
would not be done, if the claims were all fundamentally and 
equally just. As a matter of practice, the cost of the com- 
munity being secured against small-pox has been discharged 
by the State : but again, the cost of the community being 
secured against insanitary drains has not, for this is an ob- 
ligation laid on the landlord. Mr. Forster provided power to 
establish certain Free Schools for the children of parents 
unable to pay fees — as a matter of expediency: it never 
occurred to him that education must be free wherever it was 
compulsory, as a matter of equity. And not only did it not 
occur to the author of the settlement of 1870, but one of the 
strongest supporters of compulsion, Mr. Fawcett, took issue 
with the Birmingham League on this very point, and protested 
against universal Free Schools. Was he the man to commit 
a logical injustice % 

(2) But the same argument reappears in a form of lesser 
stringency — pleading that, if not unjust, it is at least incon- 
sistent that parents should be forced to pay where they have 
no option as to incurring the debt. 

It may be replied that, having borne the anomaly for twenty 
years, we might be content to let it abide as a tradition, side 
by side with many time-honoured absurdities which the 
Frenchman is more anxious to rectify than the Englishman. 
There might be some reason, however, why the matter is 



264 A Plea for Liberty. [vii. 

deemed more pressing now than at the outset of the new 
educational scheme : so the advocate of Free Schools may be 
asked to show cause why he presses the matter now^ and* 
selects this above other apparent State anomalies as requiring 
to be altered. And he would probably answer that the diffi- 
culty of remitting the fees of impecunious parents has 
increased, and that to abolish all fees is a consequent 
necessity. 

There is no doubt that it has been a crux from the be- 
ginning, how to provide a good machinery for determining 
cases of exemption from payment in School Board districts. 
For some time the Guardians acted — I believe in certain 
places they act still — but it was felt that parents incurred an 
unnecessary stigma in applying through the Relieving Officer. 
At present, in London at least, voluntary committees under- 
take the investigation and remit fees. A few years ago their 
methods were revised and put upon a basis which approved 
itself to the Chairman of the Board. Whence then the present 
outcry % I venture to think it does not come from parents — 
nor even from hard-worked Committees, though they have an 
invidious task to perform — but mainly from the collectors of 
fees, the teachers, and officials of the schools. They find it 
difficult to get in the weekly pence, and they would gladly see 
them abolished. No doubt : but thia is a very different plea 
from that of justice to parents, and must be met in a different 
way. When this is used as of force to bring about free 
schools, we are bound to point out that there Is another 
outlet from the difficulty. We can improve the machinery; 
we can be firm, even generous with the officials. It would be 
cheaper to pay more for collection than to abandon a large 
source of revenue altogether in a fit of despair. 

(3) There then occurs what is not so much an argument 
addressed to the reasonable as an inducement put before the 
indolent. It is said, ' This must come : it is in the air : it is 
no use resisting it. Lord Salisbury has practically conceded 
Free Schools.' But every English Premier moves with the 
opinion of the country, and that opinion is neither so settled 
nor so pronounced as to require present action. Even if it 



VII.] Free Education. 265 

were, the evil or good of any proceeding is net determined by 
the clamour for it. It is for those who believe there is 
mischief in the demand to demonstrate the mischief and see 
what resistance can effect. Nothing arises so soon, but 
nothing subsides so fast as a popular cry. 

(4) But when the advocates of Free Education have 
exhausted their pleas, reasonable or specious, there is still an 
arrow left in the very phrase which describes their proposal : 
it is winged with the epithet ' free.' This is one of several 
deceptive words which fly about in these educational contro- 
versies. One class of schools is called ' National ' when in 
truth it is distinctly representative of a religious body : the 
same class of schools is with equal infelicity still called 
' Voluntary,' although compulsion applies to them (for better 
or for worse) as much as to any. We had begun to under- 
stand and make allowances for these fallacious epithets, and 
now we have a third unreality set before us in the prefix 
' free.' It has great attraction for the easy-going : it is as if 
tho master taught for nothing ; or nobody was saddled with 
the cost of his teaching : therefore it must be excellent, and 
a thing to be voted for with both hands. 

n. But let men who have minds and consciences pause a 
little : for the question admits of being looked at in another 
light, and may then possibly assume a very different com- 
plexion. I admit that my answers to the advocates of Free 
Education might be overruled, if there were nothing positive 
to be urged beside — no principle at issue, no social mischief 
underlying this attractive scheme. 

It is proposed, in consideration of the poverty , of some 
parents, to make all parents a present of the fees they have 
been accustomed to pay for their children in primary schools. 
This sounds a generous proposal : it is really a new and 
hazardous step : it does not mean the extension within its 
own sphere of a principle abeady at work: it means the 
intrusion of that principle into another and an alien sphere, 
to which, we contend, it is not applicable. For let us con- 
sider what the State has hitherto done in the way of tutelage. 
It has set itself to remedy — failures : children, for whom 
19 



266 A Plea for Liberty, [vii. 

parents can make no provision at all, it has sent into work- 
house schools: children, over whom parents can exercise no 
control — these it has sent into industrial schools : children, 
for whom parents can make only part provision — finding 
food, but not education, these it has paid for in primary- 
schools. Some consider that the State has gone too far in 
doing these things, but it cannot be questioned that the 
State has proceeded cautiously, has made investigations, 
even, in suitable cases, extracted pledges for repayment of 
the outlay incurred. Hitherto every care has been taken by 
the authorities not to assume any parental function which 
the parents were able — morally and financially — to perform 
themselves. Now it is proposed to alter this ; to make a 
fresh and insidious departure, concealing how much it means, 
and pretending that there is no rupture with the past. Now 
the State is to come forward and say to parents, capable as 
well as incapable, ' We will do for your children, without 
reserve or enquiry, what hitherto we have done, with reserve 
and after enquiry, only on behalf of proved failures ; for the 
future we will accept all the children you send us, and teach 
them at the public cost.' But this is an entire subversion of 
the principle which has governed England hitherto. We have 
always impressed upon parents that the children they had 
they must also maintain until they could shift for them- 
selves ; that nutrition of mind was necessary as well as nutri- 
tion of body ; whereas now we are expected to turn round 
and say, 'nutrition of mind is exempted from your duties 
and converted into a State charge.' But is it possible to 
make a first breach in parental responsibility which shall 
also be the last ? It becomes increasingly evident that nutri- 
tion of mind is correlated to nutrition of body ; that the 
payment of school-fees is a farce for the unfed, and foolish- 
ness for the half-clothed. The example will have been set 
that distinctions as between the solvent and insolvent poor 
are either impossible or invidious, and the State which begins 
to teach gratuitously must — in the name of the consistency 
invoked at the outset — end by establishing free meals and 
free clothing for the behoof of all attending primary schools. 



VII.] Free Education. 267 

Nor do the socialists conceal that this is the object aimed at 
by them, and their idea of the logical necessities of the case. 
So cur difference on this point from the State-socialists is 
vital, and must be reasoned out. They see the unequal dis- 
tribution of this life's advantages ; they perceive that superior 
education accounts for most of these advantages ; they fancy 
that by making education more general they shall succeed In 
distributing these advantages, and especially wealth, more 
equally. So they are for freeing education at all cost. ' At 
all cost ' — but have they really considered what the cost 
amounts to % They are thinking of it merely as a matter of 
£ 8. d.\ but is it only that % Can it be so limited ? Do they 
not seek to be generous to the pockets of some men without 
being just to the nature of all men % Are they not worshipping 
the name of State, endowing it with unreal force, and fancy- 
ing it can deal with the problems of life apart from the 
character of individuals, which, after all, is the main factor in 
solving the problem % For can the State be better than 
the persons composing the State 1 and can they be good 
without discipline % Now the discipline which has hitherto 
gone to the training of Englishmen has been of this nature. 
The child has been brought up as part of the small com- 
munity called a home ; there he has learnt what submission 
to authority means, through being subject to his parents ; 
there he has learnt what co-operation means, through living 
with elder and with younger members of the family. Leaving 
home he has been thrown upon his own resources, and they 
have developed under pressure of the necessities of life: he 
has learnt to be prudent in foreseeing, versatile and coura- 
geous in meeting difficulties. Thus he is prepared in his 
turn to establish a home, to exert authority of his own, and 
to teach obedience to others. So by successive stages of often 
unconscious discipline a man becomes an orderly citizen; 
through submission, and independence, and the exercise of 
rule upon a small scale, he is fitted to combing' with others 
trained after the like fashion in the great community of the 
State. But the present age is impatient; some of its hasty 
counsellors would dispense with preliminary training, and 



268 A Plea for Liberty, [vii. 

advise men that they can worthily take their places in a 
large society without having served any apprenticeship to 
the smaller. Acts of Parliament are henceforth to protect 
every citizen and labourer from many of the practical rough- 
nesses which served to educate their forefathers ; the State 
is asked to loosen some at least of the bonds which, as a 
child, attached him to his parents, and as a parent, bound 
him to his children. The Englishman is to become a good 
citizen ]^eT saltum, without having proved himself a good 
son, or a man of valour in the fight for existence. State 
socialism opposes science, and fancies it can improve the 
species physically by sparing us hardships, and morally by 
sparing us duties ; whereas it is more likely to aid degenera- 
tion by encouraging the dependent character and discouraging 
the discipline of home. 

Already among those classes of the metropolis which this 
proposal is intended to benefit, the parental tie is feeble ; there 
is little sense of responsibility in having children ; a weak con- 
trol is exercised over them : there is considerable readiness to 
dispose of them to charitable institutions. The philan- 
thropists who have most experience and who prefer radical 
to superficial improvement, are for appealing to family life 
and increasing the solidarity of home. Yet the proposals 
we are considering, if adopted, would inevitably thwart their 
efforts^ and set the State to counterwork some of its wisest 
citizens. Mr. Fawcett, for instance, foresaw and deprecated 
this result of free schools as long ago as 1870, when the 
Birmingham League sought to make them universal. Ac- 
cording to Mr. Leslie Stephen, in the biography he wrote of 
his friend, ' the fatal error, as he urged, was that the gra- 
tuitous system would diminish the sentiment of parental 
responsibility. To' bring a child into the world was to incur 
a grave responsibility, and no action of the State should tend 
to obscure the fact. But to relieve a parent from the cost of 
his children's schooling would most emphatically diminish 
his motives for forethought.' 

I might almost leave the controversy to stand or fall with 
.this opinion of an educationalist so friendly to the working- 



VII.] Free Education, 269 

classes and so fearless in counselling them ; but there are 
two or three misconceptions as to the line of argument I 
have adopted which need notice. It is forcibly said in public, 
when this matter comes under discussion, that educated men 
have of long custom held exhibitions at school and the uni- 
versities — have enjoyed in fact privileges which they now 
seek on principle to withhold from those of a lower class, 
who need them even more urgently. It is asked, ' has their 
discipline been injured by the advantages they enjoyed — or 
have the terrible things prophesied come to pass in their own 
homes'?' And I can fancy students familiar with Mr. Faw- 
cett's biography inclined to cry out against him when they 
read that, in selecting his college at the University, ' he chose 
Peterhouse deliberately on the ground that its fellowships 
were supposed to be of more than the average value, and were 
tenable by laymen'; also that 'he won a Scholarship in the 
College Examination of May, 1 854.' But I conceive there is a 
very complete defence for the Professor from any charge of in- 
consistency. I can imagine him answering that this personal 
argument ignored the difference between exceptional assisted 
and universal gratuitous education ; that he was prepared to 
advocate the former for all classes, and deprecate the latter 
equally for all ; that the advantages given to Exhibitioners 
and Scholars are on a level (not indeed in origin, but in 
effect) with the assistance given in every primary school to 
every parent who pays only thirteen or fourteen shillings a 
year out of a cost of forty. In either case there is a residue 
of duty left for the parent to discharge, and help does not 
supersede effort. 

There are indeed some who are prepared to risk the de- 
terioration of character threatened by those whom they think 
alarmists on account of the gain to be assured to education, 
as if every child were certain to come to school regularly as 
scon as there is nothing to pay. Put does this expectation 
accord with our experience in such matters'? Are gifts 
valued equally with things paid for ? Are they not very 
much looked in the mouth, and criticised, and frequently re- 
jected 1 In the case of children for whom we remit fees in 



270 A Pica for Liberty, [vii. 

our schools, a rule has had to be made that remission must 
depend on constant attendance ; before this was done the 
irregularity was great. Let all fees be abolished and this 
resource fails. Other things being equal, regular attendance 
will certainly not improve but diminish with free schools. 
Nor do I imagine that compulsion will be found easier of 
enforcement than now, for it is not poverty which makes 
gaps in the school classes so much as mother's washing-day, 
and going on errands and attendance on the perambulator ; 
which things, I presume, will continue much as before, being 
practically unavoidable. And illustrations come to us from 
countries where free schools are in force. Statements as to 
America have appeared in the public press, but perhaps the 
analogy of our own recent colonies is more in point. I have 
before me a letter from a lady who has long resided in New 
Zealand, and has paid careful attention to the working of its 
institutions, especially those which deal with the young. She 
writes — ' Unless where compulsion is most rigidly carried out 
(a task of immense practical difficulty) the very children for 
whom a free education is provided do not attend the schools.' 
'Free schools will not necessarily ensure the education of 
the lowest class ; indeed we see a directly contrary effect ; 
for the middle class gladly avail themselves of the advan- 
tages offered by primary schools, and send their children to 
them. Such children are a credit to the teachers, who 
naturally encourage this better class rather than the shifting, 
ill-mannered children of the poorest and the improvident.' 
I admit how pathetic all this is : how honourable is the pur- 
pose in a new country of improving on the methods of the 
old, and endeavourinor that the sons should be better tauofht 
than their fathers were in England ; but the failure con- 
stitutes a lesson that State machinery cannot bring about the 
improvement desired — indeed, stands in the way of it, because 
it impairs the one method of effecting slowly what it seeks 
vainly to effect hastily. For (again quoting from my corre- 
spondent) ' there is an increasing tendency on the part of the 
population cf the colony to look to the Government for help, 
and such legislation in the name of progress shifts the centre 



VII.] Free Education. 271 

of gravity in the moral world from the parent to the State — 
slowly but surely undermining the foundation of national 
life by the deterioration of the unit of the family.' 

There will remain, I suppose, to the last a sentimental 
desire to give away whatever we prize as an infallible method 
of distributing it: there is also the general charm which 
socialistic schemes have for those who are in arms against the 
selfishness of the world, and believe that the true way of 
combatinof it lies in wide schemes of r copulation. The two 
errors run up into one ; and that one is a forgetfulness of the 
laws of virtue as laid down centuries ago in Athens and tested 
by long experience. There is no moral improvement possible 
without 'purpose': you cannot leave the will of the man 
himself out of question : what you bestow on him does not 
avail, unless it rouses his own determination to follow it up : 
wherein you coerce him for his own benefit, you do him no 
lasting benefit at all, as long as you retain the reins of 
restraint, and are unwilling or unable to trust him with them. 
It is the appetite for being taught which has to be created, and 
which must precede all machinery for satisfying it. Eut what 
creates appetite is not supply, it is exertion. There is no need 
to increase the difiiculties of learning, but there is need of 
caution how they are diminished and education made too 
cheap and easy. The children cannot be separated from their 
parents in the estimate of school. What the young see the 
elder appreciate they will appreciate, and the obligation which 
they find them ready to transfer to any who will undertake 
it, they will lightly esteem. Personal payment is a sign of 
value attached to the thiug purchased : it may be reduced to 
a small sum quite out of proportion to the thing purchased, 
but as soon as it is abolished altogether, the whole matter of 
education falls to a lower level — the thing received becomes, 
like gas or water, an article laid on by the municipality, paid 
for out of the rates, and mental benefits assume a material 
complexion fatal to their majesty and worth. 

In conclusion, let me reiterate that what moves me against 
Free Education is that it is a new departure ; the application 
of an enervating doctrine to the roots of English discipline. 



272 A Plea for Liberty. [vii. 

The State would virtually say to thousands of parents, 
' You have failed, and the ratepayers shall remove from you 
the last remnant of educational duties, and undertake to 
teach your children for you. Probably you will also be 
relieved of the cost of feeding and clothing them : but this is 
in suspense for a time, to see how you receive the earlier 
plan — whether you resent it as an indignity to learning and 
yourselves, or welcome it as an instalment due from the 
selfishness of the wealthy.' 

I appeal to parents to suspect what the political parties vie 
with each other in thrusting upon them. Is it not a bribe % 
I appeal also to thinkers, who observe life and study character. 
Is there not a more excellent way ? Can we not imagine and 
by determination realise an England which shall be pure 
without the supervision of a Vigilance Society, sober — even 
in the face of a thousand public-houses, open at all hours, and 
fond of knowledge, although — and even because — knowledge 
has to be won at the cost of self-denial, being the best in- 
heritance a man can bequeath to his children as the fruit of 
the exertions of a lifetime. 

B. H. Alford. 



Note. — The writer has intentionally limited himself to criticism of the 
recent proposal to ' free ' schools : he has declined to turn aside to discuss 
how far the school system in present use is satisfactory, either from the 
point of view of learning or the point of view of liberty. He has been 
content with the endeavour to show that any change in the way of gratuitous 
teaching would be a change for the worse. 



VIII. 

THE MOUSING 

OF THE WORKING-CLASSES 

AND OF THE POOR. 



ARTHUK RAFPALOVICH. 



VIII. 

TEE EOUSINa OF TEE WORKING- CLASSES 
AND OF TEE POOR. 

It is a distinguishing feature of the end of this nineteenth 
century that human sentiment has become more than ever 
anxious about the condition of the working-classes, and has 
turned to a study of their position and to a search for ways 
and means for improving their lot. 

Economists of the liberal school form no exception. They 
share in the universal solicitude which at the present time 
is assuming many forms. Some of these, whether their 
authors know it or not, are dangerous, some are actually 
harmful. Reasonable economists refuse to be drawn into 
accepting solutions too easily formulated. They know, thanks 
to an industrious study of economic and financial phenomena, 
what is the true ejffect of the incidence not only of taxes, but 
also of the incidence of legislation. They cannot forget, for 
example, the deplorable efiects of the old Poor Law in England. 
They fear that the plans of the socialists^ whether of the 
study, the senate, or the street, the demands of sanitary re- 
formers, the sentimentality of philanthropists, will infallibly 
lead to consequences diametrically opposed to the results 
aimed at. 

By the side of the claims made in the name of the great 
mass of labourers, in the name of the industrial proletariate 
and of the poor, there has arisen during the last fifteen or 
twenty years a new danger. It has its origin in a false 
conception of the attributes and powers of the State. We 
refer to the claims made on behalf of a system of official and 
governmental hygiene, which pretends to abolish insanitary 



276 A Pica for Liberty. [viii. 

conditions of life, to make healthy dwellings and workshops, 
in a word, to take under control the private lives of the 
citizens. In the opinion of many people at the present day-, 
the modern State should be called on to determine the rate of 
wages, the length of the working-day, the price of provisions 
and other necessaries of life ; to divide profits among the 
different branches of native industry, by the aid of innumerable 
laws, by a protective tariff, and by means of an army of 
inspectors. The Sanitarians ('Hygienistes ' is the French term), 
in their turn, set out a programme of requirements and dictate 
the conditions under which houses are to be built and 
inhabited, the nature of the materials to be used, and the 
number of the tenants. 

Hygiene, as M. Leon Say declared at the meeting of the 
38th June, 1890, at the Academy of Moral and Political 
Sciences, has become a science of much wider scope than 
formerly. It is not content to advise on matters concerning 
cleanliness, food, and the sanitation of the dwelliug-house, 
but it claims to be able to prevent the spread of epidemics by 
carrying on an offensive warfare against the germs of disease. 

Whether these pretensions are well founded or not^ they 
have rendered sanitation popular. It has also created a 
group of Sanitarians who wish State protection to be intro- 
duced everywhere. M. Leon Say suggests a doubt whether 
people will be happier when the Sanitarians become master 
and succeed in regulating our lives to the minutest detail. In 
his opinion those who look at this matter from the scientific 
point of view should spare no effort to check this new 
protectionist movement. M. Leon Say has declared himself 
before all things a strong advocate of private initiative, all the 
more so because the limits of the rights of the State in the 
matter of hygiene cannot be determined ^. 

^ Hygiene has, in fact, become an the tyranny of hygiene, and to risk 

official career. Those who fill the a revolution in order to gain our 

posts given by the State, seek to make liberty of eating and drinking, and 

themselves indispensable. One of the to limit the busybodydom of Sani- 

most distinguished of French doctors tarians in the concerns of our private 

■wrote to me recently that it will be life, 
necessary to make a new ' 89 ' against 



VIII.] Housing of Working-Classes and Poor, 277 

This conception of the State, as possessed of the attributes of 
omnipotence and providence, does not find favour with every- 
one. Eut even the select minority, which condemns all this 
absorption of economic activity, this reduction of labour to a 
state of pupilage, resists but feebly the pretensions of hygiene, 
and so it comes that we find in an essay by the Comte 
d'Haussonville^ the following phrase, which shows us how far 
the error which we are discussing has advanced v — 

' The State, I mean by the term the power of the pubhc 
which is exercised by the central or municipal authority, is 
primarily the guardian of the public health, of public and 
moral hygiene. As it is the duty of the State to take measures 
to prevent the birth of epidemics and to arrest their progress, 
so also it is its duty in a general way to see that the lives of 
its citizens are passed under conditions of good hygiene.' 

The reader must not suppose from our protest against the 
meddlesomeness of official hygienists that we are indifferent to 
the very gTeat importance of good sanitary arrangements, but 
we believe that there are methods of attaining our ends other 
and better than those put forward by the prophets of universal 
interference. 

Before embarking on the discussion of the Housing of the 
Poor, we may here interpose a statement of the elaborate 
programme of the German socialists which will appear to 
contain the maximum of demand of this kind. 

In 1873 the German socialists considered a petition intended 
for presentation to the Reichstag. It contained the following 
points : — 

(i) Every commune ought to be compelled by legislation to 
provide lodging sufficient for those within its jurisdiction, and 
as far as possible in detached dwellings. 

(2) Every commune shall be authorised to appropriate lands 
not yet built on, whoever the proprietor may be, in order to 
construct dwellings and school-houses ; further, it shall be at 
liberty to exercise this right of expropriation even outside its 
own territory. 

^ Cte. de Haussonville Sodalisnie d'Etat et Socialisme CJiretien. Bevue des Deux 
Mondes du 15 Juin, 1890, p. 859. 



278 A Plea for Liberty. [viii. 

(3) The State shall provide sufficient capital under the form 
of paper-money. 

(4) This paper-money shall be secured as a charge on the 
lands and buildings. Each commune shall receive the neces- 
sary sums in the shape of an advance without interest, and 
"with the obligation to repay after a long period. 

(5) Whoever has claim to a dwelling will pay a suitable 
rent-premium and must himself inhabit the dwelling. 

(6) The communes shall remain proprietors of the land and 
buildings. They may not however disturb any of their 
tenants in the enjoyment of their premises, so long as the 
conditions of tenancy are fulfilled. As a temporary measure 
every commune is obliged to provide shelter provisionally for 
those who have none until dwellings are made. 

These propositions, and even the idea of petitioning, were 
strongly opposed. By a large majority it was declared that 
these propositions were reactionary and altogether too moderate; 
that their authors wished to deceive the people of Eerlin, and 
that the meeting rejected all such rubbish. Workmen were 
invited to join themselves to the association of German work- 
men in order to solve the Social question by common action on 
the lines of Liberty^. 

To show what is asked for in France, we may state that an 
administrative commission was appointed, in 1883, by the 
Prefet of the Seine in order to study the questions relative to 

"^ M. Engels, the fellow- worker of by the trade of agriculture alone, they 
Marx, and the philosopher of revolu- are content with very small wages to 
tionary socialism, has attacked what make ends meet. This state of things 
he calls the 'bourgeois' solution of has its influence on the town-work- 
making the workman the owner of his man, and contributes to keep the rate of 
house. In Germany, according to him, his wages very low. In time past the 
the number of M^orkmen in the small ownership of his house was perhaps 
industries who own their houses and a benefit to the labourer ; to-day it is 
a little bit of garden, is very consider- a cause of bondage for himself and a 
able ; none of them, however, receive misfortune for the entire working- 
anything but a miserable wage. It class. According to M. Engels, the 
is only a trick to enable the infamous insanitary condition and dearness of 
capitalist to buy his labour cheaper dwellings are the necessary accom- 
in proportion to the extra production paniment of our present social or- 
of the labourer and his family on ganisation, and will only disappear 
their own land. As they cannot live with it. 



VIII.] Housing of Working-Classes and Poor, 279 

the creation in Paris of cheap dwellings. A score of projects 
and petitions were examined by this commission, a labour 
which has not yet borne fruit. Nationalisation of the soil 
according to the gospel of Henry George, and schemes for 
lotteries were agreeably mixed. One councillor demanded in 
the interest of the town of Paris the confiscation of the soil 
within the circle of fortifications, and the compensation of 
landlords by means of communal bonds secured by mortgage 
and redeemable. M. Lerouge proposed the construction, by 
the town, of three-storied houses on the land adjoining the 
fortifications within the walls by means of capital raised (i) 
by a loan of 300 millions of francs, (2) by a tax of 1 francs per 
head on every one coming to Paris from a distance greater than 
twenty-five kilometres. The Federative Socialist Union of the 
Centre demands the application of the surplus of the forthcoming 
budget, to the construction by the town of Paris of workmen's 
dwelhngs, and the establishment of a tax of 20 per cent, on 
dwellings remaining unoccupied for a month. We meet also 
many proposals for a lottery with a capital of a milliard of 
francs, for the purpose of making dwellings for those members 
of the Parisian proletariate whose income does not exceed a 
certain figure. 

In England the demand made on the State varies. At one 
time it is for the multiplication of inspectors of nuisances and 
an enlargement of their duties and powers ; at another it 
adopts the language of the Social Democratic Federation, and 
insists on ' the compulsory construction of healthy artisans' 
and agricultural labourers' dwellings in proportion to the 
population.' The Glasgow municipality has already made 
some experiments in the building of artisans' dwellings, and 
the London County Council is proposiug to build common 
lodo'inor-houses. 

To sum up the views of these reformers, some are in favour 
of a nationalisation of dwellings ; others demand that the State 
or the local authority shall build for its own functionaries, 
for workmen and for the poor; others wish to combat the 
usw)^ of the landlord, the excessive price sought for dwellings 
which are insanitary and too small. 



28o A Plea for Liberty, [viii. 

Among the most important factors of development physical, 
moral, and intellectual, the Dwelling must be placed in the 
first rank ; it is the sphere in which the life of the indi- 
vidual and of the family is passed. No one denies the incon- 
veniences, physical and moral, of the insanitary dwellings 
inhabited by a portion of the working-class and by the poor. 
The miserable condition of their homes, the overcrowding 
which reigns there with its following of disease of all kinds, 
with its accompaniment of crime and vice, the permanent 
danger which results therefrom to public health and public 
order, all these have been oftentimes brought to light. We 
are not dealing with a curse purely local, for indeed it appears 
to be universal. Everywhere we meet the same melancholy 
phenomena, in France, in England, in the United States, in 
Germany, in Switzerland, in Austria, in Belgium, in Holland. 

Attempts have been made to remedy this by legislation, by 
sanitary regulations, and by the assistance of charity. Progress 
has been made ; but it has not been possible to transform the 
dwellings of the workmen and of the poor (I speak of the 
great mass of the wage-earning class) into proper and com- 
fortable quarters; above all, it has not been possible, even 
by artificial means, to increase the resources and wages of the 
poor to any sufficient extent. 

The knot of the difficulty is the poverty of those who live 
huddled up in infectious hovels, ignorant or indifferent to the 
requirements of hygiene, of modesty and decency. This may 
be the result of circumstances or may proceed from evil habits 
of intemperance and idleness, or from mere absence of desire, 
due to inexperience of better things. 

All the harrowing descriptions which we have read, and 
which we have been able to verify, combine to make more 
pressing the solution of the problem — ' How to improve the 
housing of the working-class and of the poor ? ' It is admitted 
that the present condition is deplorable as regards the health 
not only of the inhabitants themselves, but of the whole 
town, because these insanitary dwellings are the breeding 
place of infectious diseases. The misery which they endure in 
this respect makes workmen and the poor an easy prey for the 



VIII.] Hoicsing of Working-Classes and Poor, 281 

propagation of revolutionary ideas ; a social danger is thus 
added to the physical danger. The lodging of the poor is one 
of the most complicated subjects and most difficult of solution. 
It forms one of the branches of the entire social problem 
equally with questions of food and clothing. The same rules 
and the same principles, with certain restrictions obvious 
enough to common sense, apply to this whole combination of 
problems. The part of the State and of municipalities is clearly 
indicated — their mission is above all a mission of hygiene 
and of police — it is to make war on insanitary dwellings ; but 
this action must be subordinated to some indispensable 
conditions^. 

One cannot under any circumstances ask the State to supply 
dwellings or food gratuitously, or under cost price, without 
doing an injustice to those who do not share in these favours, 
and without risk of demoralising the poorer classes. Such 
food and dwelling at a cheap rate entail a loss on the State, 
which requires the imposition of a tax to meet it. This in- 
crease of taxation falls on the whole nation, and falls most 
heavily on the poor. Such State aid has moreover a further 
disadvantage. It discourages private enterprise and private 
industry. If the State constructs, or causes others to con- 
struct, houses to be let below cost price, it impedes private 
building and produces a result the very reverse of that hoped 
for. 

Insanitary conditions proceed from the great crowding of 
human beings in buildings which were not made for the 
accommodation of so great a number of persons, from the entire 
neglect of sanitary rules, and from the accumulation of filth. 

The causes of this overcrowding are the extreme poverty 
of the inhabitants which prevents their seeking for houses, 
healthier, larger, and in consequence dearer, and which forbids 

1 We are aware of the English laws have been applied in London andBir- 

of 1875 and 1885 giving to the local mingham. In London there has been 

authorities the power to improve, if spent in this way some £1,841,176. 

necessary to demolish, insanitary The original estimates have always 

areas in cases where the responsi- been exceeded, sometimes doubled, or 

bility cannot be equitably fastened even trebled. 33,000 persons can be 

on an individual owner. These laws lodged in the improved districts. 
20 



282 A Plea for Liberty, [viii. 

any great number of tliem living at a distance from the place 
where they earn their living ; the increase of population due 
to natural causes and also to the constant immigration of 
workmen drawn from the country or provincial towns towards 
the capital; lastly, the demolition of quarters inhabited by 
workmen, which have disappeared to give place to new 
streets, railway stations, and markets, or which have been 
swept away for reasons connected with the health or em- 
bellishment of the town. For this extreme want there is no 
remedy. Poverty is incurable. For the cure of bad habits, 
in respect of cleanliness, we must arm ourselves with patience. 
This is a matter of education. 

By the aid of an active and energetic watchfulness on the 
part of local authorities, we might, it will be said, prevent the 
existence of insanitary dwellings, force landlords to keep their 
property in a better state ; we might exercise a closer inspec- 
tion of the construction of new houses and require that they 
come up to a certain minimum of sanitation. But it must 
not be forgotten that in many countries laws and police 
regulations have not been wanting, that there has been no lack 
of weapons in the administrative arsenal. We must not lose 
sight of the fact that legislation against bad sanitation requires, 
in order to be effective, a complicated and costly staff of in- 
spectors perpetually on the move ; that the application of rules 
depends less on the officials and magistrates than it does on the 
inhabitants themselves, who are more disposed to evade than 
to conform to regulation. If the poorer classes inhabit garrets, 
cellars, holes and corners, without light or air in houses badly 
built and badly kept up, it is because they cannot find better 
at a price which they can pay, and they prefer to lodge in these 
hovels rather than not be lodged at all. So we are brought 
back to our problem the solution of which, to say the least, is 
very difficult — given a great town, to furnish the poor popula- 
tion which accumulates there, with lodging, suitable, spacious, 
airy, and provided with everything that is desirable. 

Let us resolutely exclude heroic remedies, which can only 
be worse than the disease. We mean the remedies of socialistic 
formulas. There is no one formula or panacea. It is to the 



VIII.] Hoicsing of Working-Classes and Poor, 283 

progress of comfort, of moral education, of the practical in- 
struction of the industrial classes, that we must look for the 
gradual amelioration of the hygienic conditions of populous 
centres. Public administrators can without doubt carry out 
useful works and improve the general state of sanitation by 
the construction of drains, and by procuring water at a reason- 
able rate ; general rules also can be established for the safe 
guard of the public health, but it is wise to think twice before 
allowing authority to interfere in the domain of private life, 
on the plea of the public safety. 

It cannot be forgotten that every infraction of the liberty 
of contract carries in itself the germs of retribution. Try to 
protect the workman against the extortion of his landlord by 
the intervention of the law and we all know the unfortunate 
consequences which result. It is useless to waste our time 
over projects of fixing a dwelling-house tariff by the local 
authority. 

Among the most efficacious means of influencing the homes 
of the working-class, we must set the improvement of ways 
of communication and facility and cheapness of transport. 

Satisfactory results have been obtained by private initiative 
by the construction of model mansions, of working-class cities. 
The portion of the working-class who are in the easiest 
circumstances, those who earn a regular wage, have to some 
extent obtained their requirements from this source, and in 
consequence there are so many the less to be brought into 
line with the others. 

It is the business of private industry, of philanthropic enter- 
prise, of associations of workmen themselves, to supply better 
dwellings. If the buildings set apart for the dwellings of 
workmen brought in a fair revenue their number would at 
once increase. But I repeat, it is only by reflex action that 
we can hope to reach those whom the English call the residuum, 
the dregs of destitution. The work must proceed step by step, 
stratum by stratum. First, we must offer houses relatively 
comfortable and healthy, with an option to the tenants to 
become owners. Here we shall be dealing with the elite of 
the working-class, and with small employes (these last are as 



284 A Plea foi" Liberty, [viii. 

interesting as the workman and have much more to complain 
of, for they are liable to more expense), but the indirect result 
of the improvement will be felt down to the very bottom of 
the scale. 

I have insisted from the very beginning of this paper on 
what I might call the negative side of the problem, on the 
objections to every intervention of the local or national 
authority, and to State trading in dwellings. I have insisted 
on the great difficulty of the problem, on the poverty of those 
who inhabit crowded, unhealthy, and inconvenient rooms, and 
on the excessive price, in proportion to their resources, which 
they have to pay. The more modest the income, the more 
serious becomes the proportion of it absorbed by rent. In the 
workman's budget the fifth or the fourth part of his wages is 
devoted to rent. 

I have hastened to arrive at positive results in order to come 
in view of the bright side of my subject, and, after having 
displayed its difficulties, to show what private initiative has 
been able to undertake. Progress must come from the elite of 
the governed acting for themselves. The weight of a sound 
and persistent public opinion is an essential factor, and we can 
all do something to keep it watchful and awake. We must 
try to prevent the return of those periods of apathy and 
indifierence which follow the shock of a somewhat lively 
agitation, the revelations made by writers, or the close of an 
epidemic. But, even during these periods when attention 
wanders to other objects, philanthropists or economists, re- 
formers or capitalists follow their voluntary mission, seek to 
educate the rich and comfortable classes, and to call them to a 
recognition of the social duties which they have to perform. 

We may be permitted to pay a compliment to the 
Academy of the Moral and Political Sciences, which for the 
last forty-one years has devoted much serious attention to 
this grave problem. The Society of Social Economy, under 
the influence of MM. Picot and Cheysson, has devoted many 
sittings to the question, and, taking one step further, has by 
means of private initiative organised an enquiry and addressed 
an appeal to men of public spirit. It carries out, in its own 



VIII.] Housing of Working-Classes and Poor. 285 

organ La Reforme Sociale, the publication of the reports which 
it has collected. 

The Enghsh parliamentary enquiries are well known, as is 
also the private enquiry made in Germany by the care of the 
VereinfuT Sozialpolitik. 

During the Universal Exhibition of 1889, a Congress on 
cheap dwelhngs was held at Paris, which voted, among other 
resolutions, to recommend the formation of national societies. 
It should be the object of these bodies, by means of conferences, 
publications, collection of information, to encourage the indus- 
trial and working-class in the construction of healthy and 
cheap houses, by the help of co-operation or local associations. 
It recommended also the formation of an International Society 
for the study of questions relating to the improvement, sanita- 
tion, and construction of cheap dwelhngs. 

At the conclusion of a conference held on the 1st February 
1890, at Paris, the French ^Association des habitations d hon 
marched was founded. It numbers more than 300 members, and 
has control of a considerable capital. It does not itself engage in 
building, but makes it its business to stimulate public opinion 
by lectures and by pamphlets, and to assist with advice and 
information, those directly interested (the wage-earning and 
working-class), as well as the capitalist class, in the construc- 
tion of houses to be let at low rentals. Its action has already 
made itself felt in France. Here in truth is an example of 
private initiative worthy of imitation outside of France. 

The collection of works dealing with the housing of the 
working-class and of the poor would already fill a library, 
and it increases every day \ 

Great successes have been achieved on a practical basis. 
They have been gained where the matter has been treated on 
a business footing, not as a matter of charity pure and simple. 
It is of the highest importance to prove that the capital en- 
gaged in the construction of sanitary dwellings is not lost, 
that it has obtained a fair remuneration, and that it has every 
chance of security. Proof of this is indispensable, if other 

^ A bibliography has been pub- let, chez Rongier et Cie, £uiteurs. 
lished by MM. Eaffalovich and Rouil- Paris. 



286 A Plea for Liberty. [viii. 

capital is to be attracted. It has been proved to demonstra- 
tion in England, in France, in the United States, in Belgium, 
in Denmark. The capitalists, who have either turned builders ' 
themselves or subscribed to joint-stock companies, or iDought 
and repaired old houses, have, it is true, limited the remunera- 
tion of their capital to a sum lower than that which some 
owners derive from the purely commercial development of 
their real estate. 

They content themselves with a return of 4 per cent, in 
France, in England, and in Germany, and of 5 or 6 per cent. 
in the United States. They have got rid of the charitable 
character of their enterprise, which is humiliating for those 
who profit by it. People do not appreciate a gratuitous benefit 
equally with that which they have gained for themselves at 
the cost of personal exertion. To be complete we must add 
another category, namely philanthropists, like Peabody, Michel 
and Armand Heine, who have devoted large sums of capital 
to the inauguration of the work, leaving the rents to accu- 
mulate for the extension of the operation. The tenant in 
such cases enters into an ordinary contract, and, as far as he is 
concerned, the transaction is of a purely commercial nature. 

If this supply of healthy and relatively cheap dwellings 
has not brought about a lower rate of rent it is because the 
supply is still limited. We know, however, of places where 
rent has decreased in the immediate neighbourhood of these 
more comfortable houses, notably at Lyons. Even when it is 
not possible to supply accommodation at a price appreciably 
lower than the market rate, it still remains that new dwel- 
lings, built in a spirit of progress and philanthropy, present 
conditions of health and convenience far superior to anything 
to be found by their side. In this way, the means of having 
a real home which will keep together the members of the 
family, and prevent them from seeking outside for unwhole- 
some distractions, is placed within the reach of the working- 
class, particularly of the elite of that class. 

Long ago the question of working-class dwellings has been 
solved, as far as concerns the part of the population which 
works in factories established outside of the towns. For the 



VIII.] Housing of Working-Classes and Poor. 287 

most part in the great mining and mineral industries, as well 
as in the country factories for spinning and weaving, &c., 
where a great number of workmen are regularly employed, the 
dwellings necessary for the workman and his family have been 
added as an annexe. 

This creation of such villages as are to be seen in the indus- 
trial regions of the north, east, and west of France, forms part 
of the normal outlay of capital required from large employers 
of labour. The employers have an interest in attracting and 
retaining in the neighbourhood of their works the labourers 
whom they require, and in settling them there under conditions 
favourable to their health and to the moral and material 
welfare of their families. It is this clear understanding of the 
interest of industry which has created these groups of working- 
class dwellings^ and which makes the extension of the system 
certain, especially where the nature and importance of the 
establishment render it possible. 

For France we may quote the case of Anzin, le Creuzot, 
Commentry, Blanzy, Beaucourt, Noisiel. In the coal districts 
of the north in 1875 eighteen firms out of twenty-three had 
built 7000 houses, at a cost of eighteen million francs. The 
rent of these was very considerably lower than the ordinary 
rent of such houses. In England many instances of this kind 
can be quoted ; the best known are the establishments of the 
Salts at Saltaire, Messrs. Hazell, Watson & Yiney, printers, 
at Aylesbury, Messrs. Cadbury Eros., cocoa manufacturers, at 
Bourneville, Messrs. Unwin Bros., printers, Chilworth, Messrs. 
Courtauld & Co., crape manufacturers, Halstead, and the many 
colliery villages belonging to large-minded employers of 
labour like the Peases of Darlington. In America the indus- 
trial village is more familiar, and the best example is furnished 
by the American Watch Co. in the village of Waltham, which 
has now the largest watch factory in the world. In Prussia 
seventy industrial firms have built 529 houses, of which their 
workmen may become owners; 1141 have built 8751 houses 
for letting. Out of 4850 industrial firms 34 per cent, have 
provided, directly or indirectly, for the lodging of their work- 
men (1878). In the coal basin of Saarbruck 3742 houses have 



288 A Plea for Liberty, [viii. 

been built. The miners' banks have contributed 2,063,000 
marks, the State, the proprietor of the mines, has advanced 
1,897,000 marks, of which, in 1874, 814,000 marks had been 
redeemed. At the Silesian mines, in 1872, 450 houses had 
abeady been built, containing house-room for 1800 families. 
The most important experiment was that of Krupp at Essen, 
where out of a staff of 65,776 persons, 18,698 in 1881 were living 
in houses belonging to M. Krupp. 

These few figures show that it is in their own best interests 
that employers have been prompted to provide for the housing 
of their workmen. In a certain number of cases they have in 
addition given facility to their men to become owners of their 
houses by payment of annual sums, calculated so that the 
purchase-money is met by payments spread over a more or less 
extended period. 

Very great importance rightly attaches to the possibility of 
turning the workman or the petty e'niploye into a landed pro- 
prietor. It is the best means of encouraging the spirit of 
order, of economy, and of inculcating the all- valuable senti- 
ment of personal responsibility. 

Among the institutions which aim at the creation of cheap 
dwellings we must distinguish the different objects which each 
has in view. 

(i) Those which aim at building small houses, with facility 
given to the tenant to become owner by means of annual in- 
stalments. Such building can be done by associations of 
working-men and small capitalists, by joint-stock companies, 
or by individual capitalists. 

(2) Those which aim at building large houses with accom- 
modation for many tenants. 

(3) Those which seek to improve old houses. 

These objects are pursued by a variety of organisations, viz. : 
I. Building Societies. Those who attach a great value to 
individual action, to self-help, and to the co-operation of indi- 
vidual effort, will understand why we put Building Societies 
in the first rank ^. Their name of building societies indicates 

^ According to the definition of the established for the collection of funds 
law of 1874, Building Societies are or capital in order to make advances 



VIII.] Housing of Working-Classes and Poor, 289 

the primary object of these associations, but it no longer de- 
scribes their present mode of operation. They no longer build 
(at most they finish the construction of houses left unfinished 
by borrowers). They are essentially loan societies, their capital 
comes from contributions paid as a rule month by month, but 
their advances are only made on the security of real estate, 
land or houses. The peculiarity of these advances is that they 
are repayable, capital and interest, by monthly payments. It 
follows that as these societies receive a portion of their capital 
at once they are able to make advances much larger in propor- 
tion to the actual value of the mortgaged property than an 
ordinary creditor. This mode of advance is very advantageous 
to persons of small fortune. The workman earning a good 
wage, the clerk, the small shopkeeper, although he has but a 
small disposable capital, is able to buy his house, and often 
becomes owner of it at the end of twelve or fourteen years, for 
a total sum not much in excess of what he would have had to 
pay in rent alone. 

In the United Kingdom, on Dec. 31, 1886, there were 2079 
societies, of which 199^ were in England, 46 in Scotland, 
and 41 in Ireland. Their mortgage property amounts to 
^53,101,000. They owe '>^^\ millions to their shareholders 
and .^15,837,000 to other depositors ^. 

A building society often works in alliance with an estate 
or land society, which purchases at a low price large areas 
of land and re-sells them by lot with the extra profit which 
the building of a city gives. 

The English co-operative societies have organised build- 
ing departments, or have affiliated themselves to building 
societies ^. 



to their members on real property by of the Leeds Permanent Building So- 

way of mortgage. Some also make ciety. Theaverage value of ahouse is 

advances on shares, but this is the £i66. In 1886, 9400 were mortgaged, 

exception. of which 3000 belonged to workmen. 

^ In Leeds, a town of 320,000 in- In Newcastle, Birmingham, and Bris- 

habitants, two societies account to- tol, we find the same facts as at Leeds, 

gether for 11,000 members. In the ^ Sixty societies have spent more 

last twenty years more than 18,000 than £500,000 in the building of cot- 
houses have passed through the hands 



290 A Plea for Liberty, [viii. 

The number of co-operative building and loan associations 
spread throughout the great American republic may be fixed 
at between 3000 and 3500. The savings accumulated during 
forty years in the shape of houses and land and paid hj the 
occupants and their families, must certainly exceed one 
hundred millions, reckoned in English money, and reaches 
perhaps one hundred and sixty millions. For the last twelve 
years in Philadelphia alone these accumulations of capital are 
reckoned at twenty millions sterling, and the 3^early deposits 
at more than one million. At the present time the deposited 
savings amount to forty millions sterling for this town alone. 
In the whole country there are six times as many building 
societies as here. 

In Philadelphia out of a population of 900,000 souls, 
1 85,000 were workmen, and out of this number it is calculated 
that 40,000 to 50,000 workmen were owners of their own 
houses. It is true that at Philadelphia the land on which the 
town is built permits an unlimited extension, and each year 
the city surrounds itself with a new ring of neat little houses 
of red brick, each of which forms the home of a single family. 
The public health is better at Philadelphia than at New 
York. From the point of view of poor-law and charitable 
relief the comparison is equally favourable, for with its 
900,000 inhabitants Philadelphia hardly spends more than 
Boston, which has a population of 360,000. Workmen are 
not afraid to go for lodging to the suburbs and to make 
a railway journey of an hour or three-quarters of an hour 
twice a day. The system of street railways is nowhere so 
fully developed as at Philadelphia^ In New York building 
societies have made great and sudden progress. From 
January to September, 1888, more than 15,000 persons be- 
came members. 

We may congratulate ourselves on this rapid development ; 
we have here the proof that, with the aid of suitable associa- 
tions, persons earning two shillings per day can create a capital 
and can lend it to others. At the same time it is not neces- 
sary to deny the dangers which may result from ignorance of 
the most elementary rules of finance and account-keeping, and 



VIII.] Housing of Working-Classes and Poor. 291 

from a tendency to speculate among those who lead and form 
the membership of these societies. 

The system of building societies is certainly one of the 
best contrivances to give birth to a spirit of economy among 
persons who have but a very small income to spend. It 
offers a great attraction to those who pay rent for house or 
boarding-house accommodation and who wish to free them- 
selves from it. Borrowing, which so easily demoralises a 
workman, becomes in this case a stimulant to thrift and wise 
household economy. 

Outside of the Anglo-Saxon countries we meet with associa- 
tions for building in Denmark. At Copenhagen an association 
has been founded, in 1865, by the workmen of the firm of Bur- 
meister and Wain. It numbered, in 1884, 13,500 members ; it 
has aided in the construction of ^6% houses to the value of 
five and a-half million francs^ and inhabited by 4381 persons. 
A quarter of the sums advanced has been repaid, and 200 new 
houses are being built. Similar societies exist in many Danish 
towns ; in Switzerland (notably at Bale) ; in Germany under the 
influence of Schulze-Dehtzsch, the great promoter of the co- 
operative movement in Germany, great importance has always 
been attached to the co-operation of small capitalists for the pur- 
pose of combined action in the construction and purchase of 
houses ; but it does not seem that this movement, which has 
produced such remarkable results in England and the United 
States, has been equally fruitful on the other side of the Rhine. 
Instances are to be found at Insterburg, Halle, Flensburg. 
In 1886 a society of this kind was formed at Berlin (Berliner 
Baugenossenschaft). The system adopted is that of a weekly 
deposit, giving a right to a share of 250 francs. When anyone 
has been member for six months and owns at least one share, 
he may lay claim to a house when its building is finished. 
If there are several candidates, lots are drawn. 

We shall speak later of the permanent society of Orleans. 
At Beims, the real estate union (L'Union Fonciere) was founded, 
in 1870, by the einployes and workmen of the town. It is 
a co-operative society for the construction of working-class 
dwellings, and commenced its operations in iS73- Members 



292 A Plea foi^ Liberty. [viii. 

of the society are required to pay an entrance fee, which is not 
returnable, and to contribute an annual deposit of twenty -five 
francs at the least, bearing interest at five per cent. The 
society possessed some years ago forty-eight houses, each of 
which had cost from 4500 to 6000 francs. The yearly instal- 
ment to be paid by those who mean to become proprietors 
in twenty years varies from 250 to 450 francs. 

At the risk of seeming to lack method, we must here inter- 
pose a word in passing on the co-operation of Savings Banks, 
fed as they are by the thrift of the poorer classes. In Italy 
and in the United States they employ a part of their funds for 
mortgage loans^ to facilitate the construction of cheap houses. 
Men whose opinion is entitled to respect have urged the same 
duty on the Savings Banks of France. Thanks to M. Aynard 
of Lyons and to M. Rostand of Marseilles, a first step has been 
taken in this direction^. 

II. We come next to the Joint-Stock Company (Society 
anonyme), whose business it is to build cheap houses and to 
sell them by means of yearly instalments to workmen. The 
list is happily a very long one, and we cannot pretend to set it 
out in any completeness. 

In the first rank,, on the continent, we must mention ' La 
SocieU cles Cites Ouvrieres ' of Mulhouse. With a capital of 
some hundred thousand francs, to which are added loans 
guaranteed by the Society, 1200 working-class houses have 
been built in the space of thirty years ; a thousand of these 
houses have been paid for by purchasers by means of a deduc- 
tion from their wages, the amount of which has not been 
much in excess of the ordinary rents paid in other parts of the 
town 2. At Paris we find ' La Societe anonyme des habitations 

^ See Les Questions d'Economie sociale 3,539>495 marks. They remain debt- 

dans une grande ville populaire, par Eu- ors for 367,681 marks. Turning to the 

gene Eostand. cost price, which is 2,788,220, this 

^ At Mulhouse, the number of shows a profit of 1,118,956 marks to 

houses built on 30 June, 1888, was meet taxes, interest, charges of trans- 

II 24, against 948 on 30 June, 1887. fer for this period of thirty-five years, 

There have been, therefore, 176 houses say about 50 per cent. In the return 

built in ten years, costing on an aver- for 1877, the sum due was 604,041 

age 3160 marks (3950 francs). The marks; it has been reduced to 236,360 

total sum paid by the purchasers is marks. The sum paid by workmen 



VIII.] Housing of Working-Classes and Poor, 293 



ouvrieres cle Passy-Auteuil ' founded with a capital of 200,000 
francs. This society has limited the maximum interest pay- 



in these eleven years has reached 
983,663 marks. 

In 1877, the house with a story was 
sold for 3400 marks ; houses with a 
ground-floor only, were sold for 2600 
marks. The prices have to-day risen 
to 4480 and 2760 marks. The price 
of the storied house had thus risen 
32 per cent, and that of the single 
storied house only 6 per cent.; and 
the rise represents the rise in the 
price of labour, and in the value of 
the land. This one-storied house has 
not been built since 1886 ; workmen 
prefer the storied house, and it has 
been found necessary to enlarge the 
dimensions. This in part explains 
the advance in price which is due to 
the increased value of the ground, the 
expense of building, and to the im- 
provements added to the original plans. 

M. de Lacroix, in a report on the 
Institutions of Public Utility in La 
haute Alsace from 1878 to 1888, asks 
if this house of 4480 francs, which has 
now taken the place of that valued 
at 2760 francs, and which up to this 
date had been generally built, was 
not too dear for a working-class family 
whose income has not increased in 
the same proportion. 

' It appears that it is not so, and 
the cause is not that which we could 
have wished. The ground-floor cot- 
tage with its kitchen and two little 
rooms could only with difficulty be 
made to serve for more than one 
family. It was not in fact built for 
this purpose, and it would have been 
desirable that it should never be 
diverted from its original use. The 
laws of hygiene would have been 
better observed. But the purchasers 
in their anxiety to discharge their 
debt sought too often to create a 
source of revenue by letting a room 
or even a small tenement ; and it is 



this cause which has given rise to all 
the irregular gable ends and addi- 
tions, which the Society cannot pre- 
vent, and which gives to the parts of 
the towns occupied by one-storied 
dwellings an aspect so odd and un- 
seemly. Once embarked on this road 
the workman sees that the storied 
house lends itself better to this trade, 
and his demand is therefore for that 
class of house. The Society supplies 
his demand, and it is thus that the 
new storied house of 1887 appeared. 
But what happens ? the owner makes 
three tenements of his house. One 
on the ground-floor, one on the first 
floor, and another in the attics. He 
occupies one himself, generally the 
ground or first floor, and lets the two 
others — one at ten or twelve marks 
per month, the other at four marks ; 
and in this way he gets nearly five per 
cent, interest on the purchase-money 
remaining due after his first deposit 
of 240 marks has been made. But at 
the price of how much inconvenience ? 
This house, which is intended to shel- 
ter one family of five persons, shelters 
three families of perhaps ten or twelve 
persons — and all the rules of hygiene 
are set at defiance. Too often these 
houses, without the possibility of ob- 
jection on the part of the Society, and 
without, in niany instances, its know- 
ledge, pass into the hands of specu- 
lators who do not inhabit them, and 
who have no other object in view but 
to crowd them as much as possible in 
order to derive a larger revenue from 
them.' 

M. de Lacroix adds, sadly, that the 
great idea dreamt of by the founders 
of the Permanent City of Mulhouse, 
has not yet borne all its fruit. ' If on 
the one hand we have succeeded in 
awakening in some the instinct of 
thrift and family life, our success in 



294 -^ Plea for Liberty. [vm. 

able on its capital to 4 per cent, per annum. It has thus been 
able to fix the rent of its houses between 438 and 480 francs 
(all instalments of purchase-money included), in addition to a ' 
sum of 500 to 1000 francs payable on entrance. 

At Lille 'La Compagnie mimohiliere de Lille,' founded in 
1867, with a capital of loo^ooo francs, which was increased by 
a gratuitous subvention given by Napoleon III, has built 301 
houses, of which 201 are sold to their occupiers. The price 
of each of these is about 3000 francs ; one-tenth is payable 
in advance along with the cost of registration, the balance 
by instalments, monthly or fortnightly, during a period of 
fifteen years as a maximum, with power to pay at an 
earlier date. Since the origin of the society the annual 
interest of 5 per cent, has been regularly paid to its share- 
holders. 

At Saint -Quentin ' La Societe anonyme Saint-Quentinoue' 
has its home (price of a house 2500 francs). At Amiens ' La 
Societe anonynie des oiiaisons Ouvrieres/ founded in 1865, with 
a capital of 300,000 francs, has created a new quarter, built 
eighty-five houses, sold at a price below the usual price of the 
neighbourhood (price of houses 3523 and 2762 francS;, payable by 
monthly instalments of 20 francs in fifteen years). Nine-tenths 
of the capital has actually been repaid ; interest at 5 per cent, 
has throughout been earned for the shareholders, and there 



solving the problem of healthy and less encouraging quotation. It shows 
cheap dwellings is still very imper- how difficult is the task of improving 
feet. It is true that the Society could the dwellings of the poor. Things 
have succeeded completely in this would not go better if the houses were 
second part of its task if it had re- built at a loss by the State or by the 
tained ownership and merely let its municipality. There are in this matter 
houses. This is done in the country, difficulties which are inherent in all 
and in many foreign centres of in- human affairs. English societies have 
dustry. But the arrangement is not had the same experience ; at Shaftes- 
without its difficulties. How is a bury Park particularly, I understand, 
society to be financed which never There, attempt has been made to re- 
realises ? What substitute can be purchase the houses from the owners 
found for the moralising stimulus of in order to prevent the abuses de- 
thrift which takes possession of every scribed. It is on this account that some 
man who possesses a corner of land well-informed persons recommend 
or a morsel of stone ? ' building for lease and not for sale. 
We have felt obliged to naake this 



VIII.] Hoicsing of Working-Classes and Poor. 295 

remains 170,000 francs profit, which is to be used for the 
establishment of a school of domestic economy and apprentice- 
ship ^. We have spoken above of the Union fonciere of Reims. 
At Nancy La Societe imviobilih-e, with a capital of 200,000 
francs, has built fifty-seven houses, costing from 4500 to 7000 
francs, all sold to workmen. It has always paid 5 per cent, to 
its shareholders until 1884, since then ^i per cent., and is now 
in liquidation. At Havre a company, 'La Societe Havraise dea 
Cites Oiivrieres' was formed in 1871 with a capital of 200,000 
francs under the direct influence of the Mulhouse association. It 
has built 117 houses representing an expenditure of over 500,000 
francs. In 1884 it had sold already fifty-six houses, of which 
thirty-eight were entirely paid for ; conditions of sale^ — first 
deposit 300 francs, complete purchase in fifteen years by 
monthly payments of 24 francs, in twenty years by monthly 
payments of 20 francs. The interest is limited to 5 per cent. 
At Bolbec there is a Societe des Cites Ouvrieres with a capital 
of 100,000 francs. 

At Orleans, in 1879, two workmen resolved to create the 
^ Societe iTTimobiliere' whose object it is to develop the spirit of 
thrift by giving facihties for the acquisition of property. It 
had built 220 houses in 1887, all of which had found buyers 
who are paying off the purchase-price in periods of twenty-five 
years. 

In Eelgium we may mention 'La Societe Vervietoise' (of 
Verviers) for the construction of working-class dwellings ; 
' La Societe Liegeoise des 7)%cdsons Ouvrieres,^ with 425 houses, 
of which 237 are sold. 

In England, we know the Artisans, Labourers, and General 
Dwellings Company, whose object is to supply at a very low 
price a house for each family ; it was instituted as a reaction 
against the system of barracks. 

Not being able to build in London itself, it has gone into 
the country to seek for large areas. Up to t 881 it endeavoured 
to encourage workmen to become proprietors. But at the 
present time the company is buying back the houses in order 
to avoid the evils of sub-letting and over-crowding. The 

^ See Les Maisons ouvrieres d' Amiens, par ]&lie Fleury. 



296 A Plea for Liberty, [viii. 

company lias created regular little towns, 6000 houses. Its 
capital is about ^1,250,000 ; the dividend is 5 per cent. 

III. We now come to our third category, to those institutions 
whose object it is to build houses for a large number of 
tenants, but with good sanitary arrangements and a higher 
degree of comfort. In this class we must put the various 
societies and foundations which exist in London. These have 
spent nearly four millions, and house 70,000 persons. We can 
only name the Metropolitan Association, the Peabody Gift, the 
Improved Industrial Dwelling Company, the Society for Im- 
proving the Condition of the Labouring Classes ^. The capital 
employed is remunerated at the rate of 3 to 5 per cent. 
In the case of the Peabody legacy there are no shareholders 
and the revenue is employed to extend the work. An inter- 
esting enterprise, which is less known, is that of the Surrey 
Lodge Estate, founded under the auspices of Miss Cons^ who 
lives in the midst of her tenants, and pays 4 per cent, to her 
shareholders. 

In Paris, thanks to the munificence of the Messieurs Heine, 
''La Societe philanthropiqiie' has built its first block of 
dwellings, Kue Jeanne d'Arc, in the middle of the XIII*^ ar- 
rondissement. The building contains seventy-seven rooms 
divided among thirty-five tenancies ^. Two other blocks are 
to be erected in different parts of Paris, in quarters where 
healthy dwelhngs are most rare. A dwelling with forty-five 
tenements has been begun in the boulevard de Crenelle. 

At Kouen (December, 1885), 500,000 francs have been raised, 
and six separate houses built containing ninety -five tenements. 



^ According to a table prepared by action. If the ^^Societe philanthropique" 
Mr. Gatliffe, during the last forty earns 4 per cent, on the capital em- 
years up to 1886, 26,643 families, or ployed, it refutes the wild notions of 
146,809 persons have profited from the Socialists who expect everything 
the improved dwelling movement in from the State, and who demand that 
London. the Communes should employ muni- 

^ M. Picot delivered an eloquent cipal resources, and that the State 

address on the occasion of the open- should use the budget of France for 

ing of these dwellings, 18 June, 1888. the construction of houses for the 

' It is a social triumph, for it shows proletariate, 
to the irresolute the possibility of 



VIII.] Housing of Working-Classes and Poor, 297 

At Lyons, in June 1887, tenants took possession of the first 
group of houses built by MM. Aynard, Mangini, Gillet. These 
gentlemen have contributed from their own pocket 200,000 
francs, and to this has been added a loan of 150,000 francs 
from the reserves of the Savings Bank. The remuneration of 
the capital is guaranteed at 4 per cent. The promoters of the 
enterprise at Lyons having thus obtained a sohd base of 
operations and these definite results, founded a company with 
a capital of a million ; 200,000 francs deposited by themselves, 
300,000 francs to be raised in shares, 500,000 francs advanced 
from the reserves of the Savings Bank. They then bought 
7500 metres for the building of twenty houses. At Marseilles, 
thanks to the efforts of M. Kostand, the Savings Bank of 
the town has been authorised to give assistance to a similar 
enterprise. It is only just to make the savings of poor 
people flow in this direction. Since 1882, the Savings Bank 
of Strasbourg undertook to devote 392,000 francs from its 
reserve to the construction of working-class houses. Li 
Italy, the funds of Savings Banks and of the Soci^tds de 
secours mutuels, are employed in the building of small 
houses. 

At Brooklyn, we find the Improved Dwelhngs Company, 
founded by Mr. White, which pays a dividend of 6 per cent. 
At New York there is the Improved Dwellings Association, 
which divides 6 per cent., and a more recent enterprise. The 
Tenement House Building Company, which limits its dividend 
to 4 per cent. 

To Miss Octavia Hill belongs the merit of inventing a 
system of her own, of which we cannot speak with too much 
respect. Her aim is the improvement of the housing of the 
poor by the purchase of insanitary houses, which are then put 
into a good state of repair, and managed economically in such 
fashion as to obtain a fair return upon capital, and all this 
without a suspicion of charity or socialism. In place of a 
dole, time and personal service is given, and the beneficial 
influence of intercourse between the tenants and their landlords 
or rent-collectors, who are all actuated by a spirit of well- 
considered philanthropy. In 1885, Miss Octavia Hill and her 
21 



298 A Plea for Liberty, [viii. 

imitators were owners of fifty-seven buildings of the value of 
.^31 1,767, and affording accommodation for 11,582 persons. 

Miss Octavia Hill has founded a school not only in London 
but even in the United States, notably at New York and 
Boston, in Germany, at Darmstadt^ and at Leipsic. At Berlin 
a company has been formed ; its council numbers M. Gneist 
among its members. It purchases houses, repairs them, lets 
or sells them, and seeks to develop in them habits of order. 
The authorised capital is one million marks, of which 348,000 
marks are subscribed. 

We must here ask permission to refer to the scheme of 
'tenant thrift' [epargne locative), which M. Coste has explained 
in his admirable work Les questions sociales conteonporaines, 
1886, p. 430. It consists in a plan for the gradual acquisition 
of mortgage bonds which confer a right of lease and a contract 
for sale of the house occupied by the tenant, with a gradual 
reduction of the amount of rent. Would it not be possible for 
insurance companies to make advances to workmen for the 
purpose of helping them to become owners of their houses ? 
Workmen desii'ous of owning their own home could easily take 
out a policy from a life insurance company sufficient to give a 
reasonable security for the required advance. There could be no 
investment more secure than the loan to a workman on the 
security of the house in which he lives. We suggest the fol- 
lowing procedure. The workman must accumulate his savings 
in a bank, until the sum collected amounts to a guarantee for 
the loan which he wishes to obtain. He then withdraws his 
deposit from the bank ; at the same time he takes out a policy 
from the assurance company with which he also makes his de- 
posit and obtains a loan. In this way, if he dies to-morrow, 
it is certain that by means of the policy of insurance the debt 
will be extinguished ^. 

^ I have received from the kindness Rent 240 francs. 

of M. Cheysson the following note. Instalment of purchase- 
Let us take for our example the head money 201 „ 

of a family, aged 35, and a cottage, 

value 6000 francs. The Society let it Total yearly payment 441 „ 

with a contract for sale by instal- The Society contracts with an In- 

ments, payable in twenty years with surance Company a policy stipulating 

interest at 4 per cent. that, if the workman dies before 



VIII.] Hoicsing of Working-Classes and Poor, 299 

I have now arrived at the close of my survey, and it may be 
interesting to set down the resolutions proposed by me, and 
adopted by the International Congress held at Paris during the 
Universal Exhibition, 1889: — 

(i) The problem of the supply of healthy and cheap houses, 
owing to the complexity of influences at work, does not admit 
of an universal and absolute solution. 

(2) It is for individual enterprise or for private combination 
to find the appropriate solution in each case. 

The direct interference of the State or of the local authority 
with the market, for the purpose of competing with private 
enterprise, or fixing the rate of rent, ought to be excluded 
from consideration. It is only admissible when the matter in 
hand deals with means of communication, sanitary police, and 
the equalisation of rates. 

(3) The development of the construction of cheap houses in 
the outlying parts and suburbs of towns is closely connected 
with a service of frequent and economical transport (that is, 
reduced tariff on railways, workmen's trains, means of access 
into towns, tramways, steamboats, &c.). 

(4) Among the resources to which 8.ppeal can be made, it is 
fit to mention the reserves of savings banks. 

The intervention of savings banks in the development of the 
housing of the poor is legitimate and useful under conditions 
of reasonable precaution. The legislature can and ought to 
favour such intervention, by giving more liberty of investment 
for the deposits and trust funds of savings banks, and by 
reducing the burden of taxation. 

twenty years, the assurance company mium is equal to 1-5 per cent, of the 
instead of his heirs, will pay the in- price of the house. If instead of 
stalments still due. The annual pre- availing himself of this additional 
mium for such a policy would be security for purchase, the father of 
88-20 francs. the family devoted this sum to the 
Add to this the rent 441 ,, more rapid extinction of his debt, he 
would be able to complete his pur- 
Total 529-20 „ chase in fifteen instead of twenty 
Under these conditions the head of years. Which is best for him, to 
the family does not leave debt behind complete his purchase, if he lives, in 
him if he dies. The house is free on fifteen or twenty years, or free him- 
the day of his death, and becomes self from all fear of an interruption 
the property of his heirs. This pre- by death of the process of purchase ? 



300 A Plea for Liberty. [viii. 

(5) In order to reconcile the liberty of the purchaser with 
the obligations by which he binds himself in the contract for 
the purchase of a house, and in order to lighten, in case of 
death, the liability which falls on his heirs, it is worth while 
to consider carefully various combinations, e. g. clauses for the 
cancelling of contract and for the repayment of instalments, 
life insurances, mortgages, &c., &c. 

To the above I add the resolutions passed at the same 
Congress on the motion of M. Picot, Member of the Insti- 
tute : — 

(i) Wherever the economic conditions permit of it, separate 
dwellings with little gardens should be preferred in the interest 
of the workman and his family. 

(pi) If the dearness of the ground or some other cause makes 
it necessary to build in the centre of the towns houses in 
which many families are accommodated under one roof, all the 
conditions of independence ought to be carefully preserved in 
order to minimise the contact between them. 

(3) The plans should be conceived with a view of avoiding 
all occasion of meeting between the tenants. The stair land- 
ings and the staircases should be well lighted, and ought to 
be considered as a prolongation of the public road. Corridors 
and passages of all kinds should be carefully avoided. 

Each tenement should have inside aw. c, receiving its light 
from outside and provided with water. 

(4) For families with children of different sexes a division 
into three rooms is indispensable, in order to permit separation 
of the sexes. 

(5) Every restriction by which injury might be done to the 
complete independence of the tenant and his family ought to 
be prohibited. 

I think this rapid survey of facts justifies our contention 
that although the difficulty is very great, rapid progress is 
being made in its solution, that the main obstacles to be 
removed are : — 

(1) The doubt that investment in working-class houses may 
not prove remunerative. 

(%) The oftentimes destructive habits of poor tenants. 



VIII.] Housing of Working-Classes and Poor. 301 

(3) An inconvenient system of land tenure prohibitive of 
free trade and enterprise in building operations. 

(4) The uncertainty caused by the threatening attitude of 
municipal socialism. 

The first three of these we have shown to be superable; 
the last can only be cured by a healthier tone of public 
opinion, and by a fuller appreciation of the success which has 
attended private initiative. 

Arthur Ra-ffalovich. 



IX. 

THE EVILS OF STATE TBAJOING 

AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE 

POST OFFICE. 



FREDERICK MILLAR. 



IX. 

THE EVILS OF STATE TRADING AS 
ILLUSTRATED BY THE POST OFFICE. 

Out of the multiplicity of affairs with which the State 
busies itself, not one can be instanced in which it has been 
thoroughly successful. The reason of this is not far to seek. 
Years ago Mr. Herbert Spencer pointed out the positive and 
negative evils consequent upon the State frittering away 
its time and energies in schemes with which it should have 
no concern. Admittedly the main duty of the State is the 
defence of citizens against aggression ; it is manifest that this 
duty must be ill-discharged if the State undertakes other 
functions. ' It is in the very nature of things that an agency 
employed for two purposes must fulfil both imperfectly; 
partly because while fulfilling the one it cannot be fulfilling 
the other, and partly because its adaptation to both ends 
implies incomplete fitness to either ^.' It is therefore quite 
natural to find that when the State undertakes to do those 
things which it ought not to do, it does them badly ; and that 
its conduct of affairs which are foreign, as well as those which 
are germane, to the discharge of its primary duty, is character- 
ised by bungling, extravagance, and inefficiency. 

Although most people admit the superiority of private 
enterprise and administration to State-ownership and control, 
an exception is generally made in favour of one particular 
department in which it is contended the State has succeeded 
as a trader. That department is the Post Office, and social- 

^ Essay on ' Over-legislation.' 



3o6 A Plea for Liberty. [ix. 

ists, who advocate State-ownership and control of everything, 
instance that department as showing what the State can do 
when it takes the place of private enterprise, and they 
contend that it could undertake the distribution of goods, 
clothing, food, &c., just as well as it undertakes the dis- 
tribution of correspondence. Mrs. Besant's advice to ' anyone 
who thinks such distribution impossible ' is to ' study the 
postal system now existing ^.' From the Individualist 
point of view nothing could be better. If people would 
make themselves acquainted Avith the facts connected with 
the general working of this socialist ideal, the Post Office, 
the socialist bubble would soon burst. To afford them an 
opportunity of acting upon Mrs. Besant's advice is the object 
of the present essay, the writer being persuaded that the best 
refutation of the specious theories of Socialism lies in the 
fact of their utter and disastrous failure whenever and 
wherever they have been put into pracfice. 

If the State had originated and developed the present 
postal system one could readily understand the unlimited 
praise which is frequently bestowed upon it by the average 
member of the community, who looks merely at the surface of 
things, and who, when he contemplates this colossal concern, 
with its facilities for the collection, distribution, and delivery 
of letters and telegrams and parcels, is filled with wondering 
awe. But when we consider that not one of the many benefits 
connected with the system originated with the State, but that 
all have been forced upon it from without, and generally after 
long years of agitation and pressure, and that even now the 
most important part of the work, that of conveying the mails, 
is done by private enterprise, there is no apparent reason why 
we should feel indebted to the State for whatever advantages 
we happen to enjoy. Indeed, we have reason to complain 
that in consequence of State monopoly we have not a more 
perfect system than the one in existence. Over two hundred 
years ago private enterprise had established a penny post in 
London. ' To facilitate correspondence between one part of 
London and another,' says Macaulay, ' was not originally one 

^ Modem Socialism, pp. 29-30. 



IX.] The Evils of State Trading. 307 

of the objects of the Post Office. But in the reign of Charles 
the Second, an enterprising citizen of London, William Dock- 
wray, set up, at great expense, a penny post, which delivered 
letters and parcels six or eight times a day in the busy and 
crowded streets near the Exchange, and four times a day in 
the outskirts of the capital. The improvement was, as usual, 
strenuously resisted. . . . The utility of the enterprise was, 
however, so great and obvious that all opposition proved 
fruitless. As soon as it became clear that the speculation 
would be lucrative, the Duke of York complained of it as an 
infraction of his monopoly ^, and the courts of law decided in 
his favour ^.' Mr. Herbert Spencer, commenting upon this fact, 
says that if we judge by what has happened in other cases 
with private enterprises that had small beginnings, we may 
infer that the system thus commenced would have developed 
throughout the kingdom as fast as the needs pressed and the 
possibilities allowed ^. 

The very monopoly enjoyed by the State in the carrying of 
letters is in itself a tacit acknowledgment of its inability to 
contend with private enterprise. By the Act i Vic. cap. o,'^^ 
the Post Office acquired the exclusive privilege of conveying 
from one place to another all letters, and of performing 
all the incidental services of receiving, collecting, sending, 
despatching, and delivering the same. Certain exemptions 
from this exclusive privilege are made. For instance, a 
person may send a letter by one private friend to another, 
or by a messenger on purpose, concerning the private affairs 
of the sender or receiver thereof; letters of merchants, &c., 
may be sent out by vessels of merchandise ; or letters concern- 
ing goods or merchandise, sent by common known carriers to 
be delivered with the goods which such letters concern, may be 
sent, provided neither hire, nor reward, nor other profit, nor 

^ At the Eestoration the proceeds been paid, were settled on the Duke 

of the Post Office (' a rude and im- of York. 

perfect establishment of posts for the ^ History of England, vol. i. pp. 385-6, 

conveyance of letters ' set up by 7th edition. 

Charles I, swept away by the Civil ^ Essay on ' Specialised Adminis- 

War, and resumed under the Com- tration.* 
monwealth), after all expenses had 



3o8 A Plea for Liberty, [ix. 

advantage be received for receiving and delivering such letters. 
Excepting these exemptions from the exclusive privilege of 
the Post Office, it was enacted by i Vic. cap. ofi^ that — 

Every person, who shall convey otherwise than by the post a letter .... shall 
for every letter forfeit £5, and every person who shall be in the practice of so 
conveying letters .... shall for every week during which the practice shall 
be continued forfeit £100 ; and every person who shall perform otherwise 
than by the post any services incidental to conveying letters from place to 
place, whether by receiving or by taking up or by collecting or by ordering 
or by despatching or by carrying or by re-carrying or by delivery, a letter .... 
shall forfeit for every letter £5, and every person who shall be in the practice of 
so performing any such incidental services shall for every week during which 
the practice shall be continued forfeit £100 ; and every person who shall send 
a letter .... otherwise than by the post, or shall cause a letter .... to be 
sent or conveyed otherwise than by the post, or shall either tender or deliver 
a letter in order to be sent otherwise than by the post shall forfeit for every 
letter £5 ; and every person who shall be in the practice of committing any 
of the acts last mentioned shall for every week during which the practice 
shall be continued forfeit £100 ; and every person who shall make a collection 
of exempted letters for the purpose of conveying them or sending them other- 
wise than by the post, or by the post, shall forfeit for every letter £5 ; and 
every person who shall be in the practice of making a collection of exempted 
letters for either of these purposes shall forfeit for every week during which 
such practice shall be continued £ico ; . . . , and the above penalties shall be 
incurred whether the letter shall be sent singly or with anything else, or such 
incidental service shall be performed in i-espect to a letter either sent, or to be 
sent, singly or together with some other letter or thing ; and in any prosecu- 
tion by action or otherwise for the recovery of any such penalty the onus shall 
lie upon the party prosecuted to prove that the act in respect of which the 
penalty is alleged to have been incurred was dojie in conformity of the Post 
Office laws. 

It will be seen that under such restrictions and prohibitions 
any attempt on the part of private enterprise to compete with 
the State in the carrying and delivery of letters is out of the 
question. Some time ago the Postmaster- General discovered 
that certain of the public, dissatisfied with the facilities 
offered by the Post Office, were forwarding letters as parcels 
by the various railway companies. Many small provincial 
newspapers, whose proprietors could not afford to pay for 
press telegrams, were receiving ' copy ' from their London cor- 
respondents and agents in this way. Immediately the matter 
came to the knowledge of the Postmaster-General he addressed 
a letter, dated April ist, 1887, to the various railway com- 
panies, pointing out to them that they were infringing upon 



IX.] The Evils of State Trading. 309 

his exclusive privilege, and requesting them to discontinue 
the practice, which, he stated, was imperilling ' the privileges 
conferred upon him by law for the benefit of the public,' and 
endangering the public revenue. 

It is difiicult to get people to realise that a thing which for 
the most part only costs a penny is yet much dearer than it 
need be. But such is undoubtedly the fact. It was cal- 
culated by Sir Rowland Hill that the cost of conveying a 
letter from one point in the United Kingdom to any other was 
-g\- of a penny. Suppose, then, we assume that the cost of 
collecting, stamping, conveying, and delivering a letter posted 
in London and addressed to Glasgow to be one-sixth of a penny, 
it will be seen that an enterprising postal agency would be 
able to carry a letter for which we now pay the State a 
penny for a halfpenny, and even for a farthing, and realise a 
handsome profit. We do not argue that a penny postage is a 
colossal grievance, for many people have been heard to exclaim 
that a reduction of the rate of postage and a consequent 
increase of correspondence are a prospect which they cannot 
regard with equanimity. This of course is the reason of the 
long-suJ3ering of the public in this matter. But our object is 
to point out that a Government monopoly charges at least 
double what would be charged under an open system, and to 
ask the reader to believe that the effect of enlarging the sphere 
of Government monopoly would be to double the cost of living 
all along the line. As to our foreign and colonial letters, 
Mr. Henniker Heaton, M.P., has shown that, assuming 
one -sixth of a penny to represent the cost of conveying 
an ordinary letter from London to Southampton, the total 
cost of conveying a letter from London to New Zealand 
would be a farthing, one-twelfth of a penny being allowed to 
cover the cost of carrying from Southampton to destination, 
which is more than twelve times the highest rate for the most 
precious goods. Yet for this service, which could be performed 
at a handsome profit at a penny per letter, the State has all 
along been charging sixpence ; and it was only during the last 
session of Parliament that the Government, in response to a 
strong and indignant feeling in the country aroused by the 



3IO A Plea for Liberty, [ix. 

member for Canterbury, whose exposures of Post Office ex- 
travagance, bungling, and inefficiency have attracted so much 
attention, virtually confessed that the public had been over- 
charged all along, and that henceforth a uniform rate of two- 
pence-halfpenny for letters would be instituted between 
England and her colonies. The average citizen will doubtless 
bless the Post Office for the reduction, unconscious of the fact 
that he has been overcharged throughout the past, and that the 
overcharge will continue at the rate of three-halfpence per letter 
until the postage is reduced to a penny. Merchants, news- 
paper proprietors, and others who have been aware of this, 
have evaded payment by posting their letters in France 
or Germany, whence the rate to nearly all parts of the 
world is loo per cent, cheaper than it is from England ; and 
it has been stated that one London firm alone saves ^1300 
per annum by posting its letters in France for India and 
China, where the rate is twopence-halfpenny as against five- 
pence charged in England. When it is considered that a 
letter posted in New York for Singapore, and carried there 
via England, in one of our mail steamers^ costs twopence- 
halfpenny, whereas a letter posted in England for Singapore 
is charged fivepence ; that the cost of letters from England to 
Shanghai, if sent through the French or German Post Office 
there is twopence-halfpenny, but if through the English Post 
Office at the same place the charge is fivepence per letter, and 
that the same is the case in Zanzibar and other places ; that 
millions of samples of English merchandise are still being sent 
from London to be posted in Belgium back to every town in 
England at half the rates which are charged if posted in Eng- 
land^ ; and that these and other facts stated above are merely 
samples, taken at random, of the multitudinous anomalies of 
our State postal system, some idea may be formed of the 
enormous saving to the community, especially the commercial 
section, to whom this matter is of serious consideration, were 
the present State monopoly abolished and replaced by private 
enterprise. 

^ Vide Mr. Henniker Heaton's Postal Reform, and his letter in Times, Sept. 
nth, 1889. 



IX.] The Evils of State Trading, 311 

We do not share Mr. Henniker Heaton's opinion that the Post 
Office will ever prove an efficient machine while under State 
management. The Postmaster-General, however, has confessed 
to the justice of his complaint, and has yielded to criticism 
in Parliament a reduction of rates which would long ago have 
reached the public under a system of private enterprise. 

What a public misfortune it would be if we were dependent 
for all reductions of price in articles of daily consumption on 
the successful badgering by private members of the minister 
in charge. The present plan seems to be to put up the rate 
of postage and lower the rate of telegrams quite irrespective of 
cost price, and merely according to the whim of some hard- 
pressed Postmaster- General. 

. The principles upon which this State monopoly is conducted 
are of anything but a business character, and are such as if 
adopted by any private firm or company would result in 
speedy ruin. Its periodical accounts, says Mr. Henniker 
Heaton, are of such a nature that no one can find out what 
the gross receipts and net profits are within three-quarters of a 
million of money ; and it has been stated that they are never 
properly audited. Its revenue is hundreds of thousands more 
than is represented in the estimates, the amounts being paid 
away in contracts with foreign Governments which have 
never been submitted to or sanctioned by the House of 
Commons. For the use of the Brindisi route it has been 
frequently pointed out that it ought not to pay more than 
.^^31,200, yet it actually pays .^84,000, or .^52,800 more 
than is fair and necessary. Its stationery contract with 
Messrs. De la Rue and Co. lost the country from .^60,000 to 
.^70,000 a year, making a total loss to the British public of 
^""500,000 on the ten years' contract ; yet the Postmaster- 
General repeatedly stated in answer to questions in the 
House of Commons that ' the contract was a positive boon to 
England,' In a letter published in the Thnes on September 
nth, 1889, Mr. Henniker Heaton saj's: — 

The extraordinary method is pursued of paying out of the current revenue 
of the Post Office the cost of land and buildings required for Post Office pur- 
poses, and through this means the Postmaster-General owns already land to 



312 A Plea for Liberty. [ix. 

the value of more than two and a quarter millions in London alone. Ko 
business man in the world would conduct his affairs in this manner— taking 
no account of the money he expends in landed property and buildings. Yet 
this very department, that trifles with hundreds of thousands of pounds, 
refuses to allow a local postmaster in my constituency to expend is. ^d. in 
mending a lock of a door, but insists on despatching an officer from the 
Board of Works to the scene at a cost of £3 los. This I proved before the 
Select Committee. 

From what other cause than a systematic looseness in 
appointing its officials is it due that the abstraction of postal 
orders is of almost daily occurrence"? During the year 1887 
the Postmaster-General stated that the abstraction of these 
orders 'reached portentous dimensions.' During 1889, 325 
dishonest letter-carriers were found guilty and dismissed 
for irregularities, and on an average more than three officials 
per week were convicted and sentenced to long terms of 
imprisonment for stealing letters, and a large number 
cautioned for suspicious conduct or carelessness ■^. 

Who has not suffered under the discourtesy of the officials, 
both male and female, employed by the Post Office to attend 
to the wants of its customers ? Who, residing in a suburb in 
which the Post Office is inside an ordinary baker's, grocer's, or 
chemist's shop, has not been annoyed when the shopkeeper, 
after blandly asking them what they required, and being told it 
was a penny stamp, abruptly turned to wait upon their own 
customers first, keeping the State's customers waiting until they 
had time to serve them % During the middle of the present 
year (1890) the relations between the young ladies of the 
Ludgate Circus Post Office and the general public became so 
strained that the Postmaster- General was compelled to remove 
the whole staff and replace it by one of males. One does not 
find such a state of affairs existing in any private establish- 
ment. A customer enters a draper's, tailor's, or other shop, 
and meets with courtesy and pleasantness, and is served with 
promptitude. A spirit of discourtesy in such places would 
drive customers away. But in the Post Office it is different : 
the customer has no remedy ; he cannot go elsewhere to get 
his postal wants supplied. The officials know this, hence their 

^ Mr. Henniker Heaton's Tostal Reform, p. 14. 



IX. The Evils of State Trading, 313 

attitude towards the helpless public. Let the shopping public 
contemplate what shopping would be under socialism, when 
every article would have to be purchased in establishments 
conducted in the same discourteous manner as the Post Office, 
and their bias will be anything but socialist. 

The arbitrary and frequently impudent manner in which the 
Post Office treats its customers forms the subject of hundreds 
of letters which annually appear in the public press. The 
victims of what Mr. Herbert Spencer calls 'the stupidity, the 
slowness, the perversity, the dishonesty of officialism ' in the 
Post Office, finding they have no remedy for the wrongs that 
they have been subjected to, give vent to their well-founded in- 
dignation in the columns of the Tiones and other papers. Thus 
we read of a firm of merchants in Edinburgh complaining 
that through the admitted carelessness of a Post Office tele- 
graphist a telegram addressed to them was never delivered, 
and they sustained a loss of ^100. When they sent in a 
claim to the postal authorities they were told that ' the 
department is not legally responsible for the delay complained 
cf,' but that it would refund to them the sum of J Id., being 
the amount paid for the transmission of the telegram ! Com- 
mercial men and others lose thousands of pounds every 
year by delay and wrong delivery of letters and telegrams. 
Valuable goods are damaged, lost, or stolen when sent through 
the parcels post, and the complaining owners receive nothing 
but a stereotyped expression of regret from the officials, and a 
disclaimer of all responsibility. In the case of the parcels 
post the public have only themselves to blame. If parcels 
sent by private carriers — who, as will be presently shown, 
carry them quicker and cheaper than does the State — are 
damaged, lost^ or stolen, or even delayed, the owner receives 
full satisfaction for any loss sustained. So that if people are 
foolish enough to ' slight the good and faithful servant, and 
promote the unprofitable one,' they must put up with the 
consequences. We find other victims complaining that while 
the Post Office imposes a fine in the event of the face of a 
postcard bearing any words in addition to the address, it 
almost invariably disregards its own part of the contract and 
22 



314 ^ Plea for Liberty, [ix. 

defaces the letter on the back of a post-card by affixing its 
official stamp upon it. During last August, the writer, whilst 
staying in a little town on the Norfolk coast, received four post- 
cards in three days, and each card was defaced in the manner 
described, several words in two of them being completely ob- 
literated. A protest against this breach of contract elicited 
from the Secretary the consoling reply that he regretted the 
cause of complaint, and that the special attention of the postal 

officials at C had been called to the matter. If a private 

jSrm repudiated responsibility for its blunders and carelessness, 
we should regard the fact as disentitling it to our custom. Can 
the systematic repudiation by the State be regarded in any 
other light ? Again, others write to protest against what they 
justly term 'the contemptible trick,' 'a breach of trust and 
confidence,' — the opening of letters by the Post Office. What 
could be more contemptible than the trick recently performed 
by the Post Office upon the Postmen's Union. At eleven 
o'clock on the morning of Saturday, August i6th, 1890, one of 
the officials of the Union posted in the Finsbury district several 
postcards addressed to clubs in the immediate neighbourhood, 
asking them to get volunteers to carry collection- boxes on 
the following day (Sunday) at the dockers' demonstration, on 
behalf of the postmen dismissed during the recent postmen's 
strike. These postcards should have been delivered before 
6 P.M. on the same day at the latest, but they were kept back 
by the Post Office officials and not delivered till the Monday, 
too late for the purpose they were intended for. 

With regard to the recent strikes among the postmen, it 
would be well that the working classes to whom the specious 
doctrines of socialism are being preached should realise the 
change for the worse that would take place in their position as 
workers in the event of the present industrial system being 
replaced by one of a socialist character. With the ' New 
Unionism ' which seeks to enslave the labourer under a new 
form of tyranny, we have no sympathy whatever. At the 
same time it must be borne in mind that the right of voluntary 
combination for the legitimate purpose of mitigating by lawful 
means some of the evils of competition is one of the most 



IX.] The Evils of State Trading. 315 

cherished privileges of the English working class. It is true 
that in asking its servants to forego this privilege the Post 
Office offers pensions and other advantages which to some 
might seem an adequate substitute. This, however, rightly 
or wrongly, is not the view of many Post Office servants. And 
even though it may be reasonable to ask the labourers in one 
or two industries to contract themselves out of their right of 
combination, it is quite unreasonable to propose that the 
whole of the working class should abdicate their liberty of 
action in the way required by the Post Office officials. But 
this is really the proposal of the socialists. It is very probable 
that Mrs. Besant is right in thinking that the Post Office 
officials have a comfortable berth, but the fact does not 
reconcile them to the restraints imposed upon their liberty, 
and we are not disposed to blame them. The socialist or- 
ganisers of the strike spared no effort of rhetoric in enlarging 
on the servile condition, as they termed it, of the State 
servants, and the secretary of the Union described the Post- 
master-General ' as a task-master worse than the vilest East 
End sweater.' Yet this is the institution which Mrs. Besant 
quite correctly puts forward as the most nearly successful 
example of State socialism which the world has ever seen. 

We pronounce no judgment on the merits of the quarrel 
between the Postmaster- General and his servants. We point 
out, however, the anomaly that when a labourer takes service 
in a State monopoly he is called on to surrender his right of 
combination with his fellows. There is, of course, justice in 
this : the Post Office has prevented competition, and is bound 
to protect the public against a cessation of the letter-carry iug 
service. This it can only do by introducing a species of 
military law, a condition characteristic of all socialist institu- 
tions, which workmen should bear in mind. 

Attention will now be called to a few facts in connection 
with certain attempts on the part of the Post Office to com- 
pete with private enterprise. 

The Parcel Post This department of the Post Office 
was established a few years ago with the object of the 
State becoming exclusive carrier of small parcels. This 



3i6 A Plea for Liberty. [ix. 

attempt to compete with railway companies and other 
common carriers has been financially a signal failure. In the 
matter of rates we find those charged by the railway companies 
and carriers about 50 per cent, less than those charged by the 
Post Office, the former collecting and delivering the parcels 
within ordinary limits without additional charge. Instead of 
a person carrying his parcels to a Post Office, where he has to 
wait and get them weighed, and where he is compelled to pre- 
pay the carriage before they are received, a railway company 
collects them without charge, and it is optional whether the 
carriage is paid by the sender or the consignee. If parcels are 
handed over to the Post Office they are sent by certain trains 
only during the day, Avhereas if handed to a railway company 
they are despatched by the first passenger-train after receipt. 
The Post Office receives parcels up to a limited time only, 
whereas the railway companies receive and despatch them by 
the latest transit, including midnight service, thus ensuring a 
very speedy delivery next morning without any extra expense. 
In the case of parcels handed to a railway or carrying company 
being damaged or lost the owner is entitled to full compensa- 
tion without having to pay any charge beyond the ordinary 
carriage, whereas if they are handed to the Post Office ' The 
Postmaster-General will (not in consequence of any legal 
liability, but voluntarily and as an act of grace) . . . give 
compensation for loss and damage of inland parcels ' not 
exceeding £\ where no extra fee is paid, not exceeding £^ 
where an insurance fee of a penny is paid, and not exceed- 
ing ^^10 where an insurance fee of twopence is paid. 'In 
no case will a larger amount of compensation than j^io be 
paid V 

Savings Bank. The Post Office Savings Bank was estab- 
lished for the encouragement of thrift among the working 
classes. With its abundant facilities for the receipt and 
payment of money one would imagine that the Post Office 
would be certain to meet all the banking requirements of the 
working classes, and make it almost impossible for private 

^ Vide Postal Guide. 



IX.] The Evils of State Trading, 317 

enterprise to compete with it in this particular field of indus- 
try. Such, however, is not the case. Not only does the Post 
Office fail to meet those requirements, but its business as 
workinor-class banker is conducted with that lack of enter- 
prise which is characteristic of all Government departments, 
and in point of convenience and advantage to customers it 
compares very unfavourably with working-class banks con- 
ducted by private enterprise. 

The Post Office Savings Bank receives deposits of one 
shilling, or any number of shillings, but a person is not 
allowed to deposit more than ^^30 in one year, or ^150 in 
all, exclusive of the interest of 2 J per cent, per annum for 
each complete pound. The hours during which offices are 
open for the receipt and payment of money are the very hours 
during which the working classes are engaged at their work, 
and during which the Post Office clerks are busily engaged in 
discharging their ordinary duties. There are, however, certain 
offices open on Friday and Saturday evenings till 7 P.M. or 
8 P.M., but only for receiving deposits. When a depositor 
wishes to make a withdrawal from his account he is compelled 
to call at a Post Office and obtain a, notice of withdrawal 
form, which he must fill up and post to the office of the 
Savings Pank Department, from which he will in the course 
of a day or two receive a warrant upon his local Post Office 
to pay him the sum required. He has then to pay another 
visit to the Post Office, and after presenting his pass-book 
and signing his name to the warrant in the presence of the 
postmaster or other Post Office official and satisfying the 
said postmaster or other official that he is really and truly 
the person in whose favour it is made, he succeeds in obtain- 
ing a withdrawal from his account. If a depositor is sick or 
abroad, or by any cause prevented from presenting the warrant 
in person, payment is made to ' the bearer of an order under 
his hand, signed in the presence of any officer of the Post 
Office other than the paying officer, a minister of any re- 
ligious denomination, a justice of the peace, a commissioner to 
administer oaths, or, in case of sickness^ the medical attendant. 
If the depositor be resident abroad, the signature must be 



3i8 A Plea for Liberty, [ix. 

verined by some constituted authority of the place m which 
he resides, or a notary public ^.' 

It is obvious that these absurd regulations are most incon- 
venient to working-class depositors, and a source of consider- 
able annoyance and irritation. Many accounts have been 
wholly withdrawn, or transferred elsewhere in consequence. 

If we compare the general working of the Post Office 
Savings Bank with that of a banking business conducted by 
private enterprise, the comparison will be very favourable 
to the latter. Take the National Penny Bank for example. 
This was established in 1875, having for its objects to 
promote thrift by affording facilities for the exercise of thrift, 
to establish a permanent Penny Bank, open every evening^ 
and to make such Penny Bank absolutely safe, self-supporting, 
and on a commercial basis. It has a head office at West- 
minster, a city office, and branch offices in various parts of the 
metropolis and the London suburbs. These offices are open 
during each evening to receive deposits from one penny 
upwards to any amount^ and to pay withdrawals on demand. 
Interest is paid at the rate of 3 per cent, per annum on 
complete pounds left in the Bank for complete calendar 
months. Depositors may withdraw money hy post by simply 
sending a written application accompanied by pass-book, and, 
if the depositor so desires, an amount will be sent by cheque 
to any person named by him. The Bank also advances money 
to working men to enable them to purchase their own houses, 
charging interest at 5 per cent, per annum. 

The growth of this National Penny Bank is most encourag- 
ing, and its success depends on the facilities which it 
offers to its customers. We could wish that the directors 
could find it possible to overcome the obvious difficulty of 
expense, and to imitate the collecting insurance companies, 
so that these advantages and opportunities for saving could 
be brought to the door of every working man. The Bank 
is now paying a dividend, and has proved that working- 
class banking can be made a profitable industry. There can 

* Post Office GwtcZe,p.390. 



IX.] 



The Evils of State Tradmg, 



319 



be little doubt that banks of this sort will soon supersede 
the Post Office. 

Insurance Department. The above is no mere assumption : 
for in the allied industry of insurance the business done by 
private enterprise far surpasses that done by the Post Office, 
aided though it is by its ubiquity and the undeniable nature 
of its security. The following table will give an apt com- 
parison of the business of the Post Office, as against the business 
of one company, viz. the Prudential Assurance Company as 
shown by the latest returns : — 



Post Office. 


No. of Contracts 
in existence. 


Premium Revenue. 


Insurance 6210 
Deferred 

Annuities 1015 

7225 


Insurance 14,121 
Annuities 19,625 


Increase in the 10 

years 1879-SS. 


£3,694 


33,746 


Prudential 
(Industrial). 


8,518,619 


^3,336,742 


£1,849,203 


Prudential 
(Ordinary). 


177,208 


£904,915 


£611,313 



Telegraphs, When the possibility of conveying intelligence 
instantaneously for long distances was demonstrated, and 
when Cooke and Wheatstone patented their magnetic needle 
telegraph in 1837, the State did not avail itself of the inven- 
tion, but remained satisfied with the old semaphore. The 
new invention was worked by private enterprise for thirty- 
three years, and ' during this period,' said Sir Charles 
Bright in his address to the Society of Telegraph Engineers 
and Electricians in 1887, 'those engaged in the undertaking 
had provided the capital, incurred all the risk, and devel- 
oped the telegraphic system into a highly lucrative business, 
from which the profits were steadily increasing, so much 
so that the net earnings of the two largest companies 
ranged from 14 to 18 per cent, per annum.' When the 
State realised that the business was a financial success, it 
took steps to acquire all the telegraphic undertakings in the 
kingdom, and in 1868 an Act was passed entitling it to do 
this, and in the following year a further Act was passed 



320 A Plea for Liberty, [ix. 

which gave to the Post Office the monopoly of telegraphic 
communication. From that time till now the telegraphs 
in the hands of the State, while they have remained very 
stationary in respect of public utility, have been a financial 
failure, the annual deficit frequently exceeding half a million, 
as was the case in 1886-87, when the deficit for the year was 
£540,527. Yet the Submarine Telegraph Company has been 
conducting the communication between England and the 
continent under the Channel with great efficiency, and at 
moderate rates, and has deservedly been reaping a profit for 
its usefulness, and paying a dividend of 15^ per cent. The 
telegraphs' deficit is made up of various items, the principal 
representing interest on capital, the outcome of the bad 
bargain the State^ with characteristic stupidity and short- 
sightedness, made at the outset with the private companies, 
and the rest representing unprofitable management of the 
business, and squandering of money in large salaries to 
useless officials. If a private company conducted its business 
in such a loose manner it would be classed as a dead failure, 
and would speedily terminate its existence in bankruptcy 
proceedings. But as the business is a State monopoly the 
taxpayers are compelled to give it a whitewashing to the 
tune of half a million per annum, and to allow it to pursue 
its career of wasteful inefficiency. 

For the purpose of comparison it may be stated that the 
various railway companies in the kingdom annually receive, 
transmit, and deliver over their own respective systems 
hundreds of thousands of their own private telegrams at a cost 
of a mere fraction of a penny per telegram ; while the State 
experiences a loss upon every telegram that passes through its 
hands, although the minimum charge for sending a telegram is 
sixpence. The following figures, published during January, 
1887, speak for themselves. The Post Office within an area 
of twelve miles from the General Post Office sehds a weekly 
average of 290,027 telegraphic messages over its wires at an 
average cost of eightpence per message. The United (now the 
National) Telephone Company, within an area of five miles 
from the same centre, in one week of December, 1886, trans- 



IX.] The Evils of State Trading. 2>^^ 

mitted 449,696 telephonic messages at an average cost of 
three farthings each. It may be added that while the Post 
Office has an annual deficit of about half a million, the National 
Telephone Company at its meeting in July last declared a 
dividend of 6 per cent., and reported an increase in the gross 
revenue, a decrease in the working expenses, and a large 
addition to the reserve fund. 

The only branch of the postal service which is a financial 
success is that of letter-carrying. As already shown, the actual 
cost of an ordinary inland letter is -5^- of a penny : all the rest 
is clear profit. The heavy losses sustained in every other 
branch of the postal service have to -be covered by the profits 
realised by the penny post. It will perhaps be as well to hear 
what the Postmaster- General has to say in reference to these 
matters. Keplying to a deputation from the Wolverhampton 
Chamber of Commerce, which waited upon him on January 
27th, 1888, to call attention to several anomalies connected 
with the postal and telegraph . regulations, and to com- 
plain that orders to manufacturers and others sent by the 
halfpenny post were charged letter-rate if any note was 
added, and to request that documents of a commercial 
character — orders, invoices, shipping instructions, bills of 
lading, he. — should go through the halfpenny post, and to 
seek some reduction in the charges for sending telegrams from 
Post Offices through the telephone to their destination, and to 
point out that private firms were producing and selling post- 
cards at 6ld. per dozen, while the Post Office charged Sd. per 
dozen, the Postmaster- General said, — 



instead of id. could not be done. It would have an effect upon the revenue 
which could not be contemplated without horror. The penny postage earned 
an income which had to be expended on other branches of the service. 
Telegraphs were a losing business, and the deficiency was paid by the penny 
postage. The carriage of newspapers also involved considerable loss, and the 
halfpenny post was rather a losing than a paying concern. Anything which 
largely shifted correspondence from the penny to the halfpenny rate might 
actually disturb the equilibrium of the revenue ; therefore anything that 

struck at the penny post could not be entertained As to postcards, 

when they were sold at 8d. per dozen and private firms could produce them 
for 6 2d. there must be some unsatisfactory practice. He had information on 



322 A plea for Liberty. [ix. 

that subject which he hoped to utilise for the public benefit ^ Respecting tele- 
phones it was misatisfadory that the Government had to compete with private firms, and 
before long the system must be taken up by the Government and telephones 
placed on the same footing as telegraphs, and be controlled altogether by the 
Government ^ 

Socialists will agree with their friend, the Postmaster- 
General, that it is unsatisfactory that the State has to compete 
with private enterprise. If the State could suppress private 
enterprise, if it could eliminate the factors of human progress, 
commercial success, and national greatness, it would enable 
socialism to take the place of civilisation ; but while private 
enterprise enjoys its present freedom, which will be as long 
as men value liberty, socialism has no chance of success. 

Whether or not it is the intention of the State to take 
over the telephone, it should not be forgotten that it did its 
best to obstruct its introduction, and prevent the use of that 
ingenious and novel invention in this country. Although 
the telephone was not invented and brought to this country 
till 1877, it was found to be embraced by the wide-mean- 
ing terms of the Telegraphs Act of 1869. The Post Office 
declined to use it or to allow private enterprise to do so. The 
State having become a trader in the conveyance of intelligence 
electrically, was afraid that by allowing private enterprise 
to use the telephone the telegraph monopoly would be seriously 
interfered with. But this dog-in-the-manger policy was of 
short duration. The public, fully alive to the advantages to be 
derived by such a cheap and handy means of communication 
as the telephone would afford, demanded that some concession 
should be made by the Post Office. This was eventually done, 
the telephone companies being permitted to establish com- 
munication in certain places, providing they handed over to the 

^ The manner in which the Post- firms selling at a lower rate than the 

master- General has utilised his ' in- Post Office he has increased the rate 

formation ' ' for the public benefit ' is for stamping private postcards from 

wor:hy of notice. He has caused the is. 6d. to 2s. 6d. per quire, thus im- 

Post Office to issue postcards of a posing a fee of 200 per cent, above 

similar quality to those hitherto pro^ the price at which any printer would 

duced and sold at a profit by private execute the work ! Vide Mr. Henniker 

firms for 6|rf. per dozen at Gd. for Heaton's PostoZ i^e/onw, pp. 12,13. 

ten, and in order to prevent private ^ St. James's Gazette, June 2 7th, 1888. 



IX.] The Evils of State Tradmg. 323 

Post Office one-tenth of their gross receipts. Thus the National 
Telephone Company supplies a customer with a telephone for 
the use of which it charges .^''20 per annum, ji^2, of this going 
to the Post Office, 'simply as black-mail,' says Sir Frederick 
Eramwell, and the pubhc are kept out of the use of this 
important means of communication unless they submit to this 
monstrous tax. 

It is, indeed, sad to reflect that in this England of ours, 
which boasts of its freedom, a Government department should 
be permitted to restrain and hamper the development of this 
cheap means of communication^ which has really become one 
of the necessities of commercial life. The fact that we have 
the present limited means of telephonic communication (the 
number of instruments under rental in England being 99,000, 
while in America at the beginning of the present year there were 
222,430, being an increase of i6,6j^ over the number in 1889) 
is due entirely to the bull-dog pertinacity, the watchful care, 
and the courageous energy of the telephone companies in 
resisting the Post Office in its endeavours to uphold its 
retrograde position. 

Upon the occasion referred to above, the Postmaster- 
General said that he ' should be glad of any suggestions 
which would assist in placing the whole system of telephon- 
ing in this country on a satisfactory basis.' But there is 
really one way in which the State could assist in doing 
this, and that is, by removing all the restrictions which 
it has placed upon the development and extension of tele- 
phonic communication in this country, in order that the public 
may enjoy the full benefit of the telephone, which has been 
well referred to as one of the most ingenious inventions that 
ever was made. 

Notwithstanding the very profitable nature of the letter- 
carrying monopoly, it cannot be said that, at times of great 
press of business, the public is served with that absence of fuss 
and effort which ought to characterise a great and wealthy 
corporation. At Christmas-time the Post Office is completely 
disorganised. Its customers are pitifully implored not to 
pay exclusive regard to their own convenience, and to 



324 A Plea for Liberty, [ix. 

despatch their packages and letters according to a time- 
table drawn up by the Post Office to suit its own con- 
venience. But despite these precautions, the deliveries turn 
out irregular or break down altogether ; and although the 
same disorganisation reappears each succeeding year, just 
as if the stress of business which causes the breakdown had 
never occurred before and was quite outside the field of human 
prevision. This disorganisation and breakdown commences 
a week or ten days in advance of Christmas, and even on the 
15th of December the block and muddle have been so well 
developed that it has taken a letter two days to travel 
between the S. W. and E. C. districts ; a book posted in 
London for Paris has occupied four days in transit; and 
within the metropolitan district telegrams have laboured along 
at the rate of one mile in twenty minutes. For a few days 
previous to Christmas the first delivery of letters falls two 
hours in arrear, and by the 24th it has been known to break 
down altogether. It may be said that private trading com- 
panies sometimes break down under a foreseen stress of 
business, and that the railway companies at Christmas allow 
their train-system to get disorganised. This, no doubt, is 
true ; but we are searching (in vain it may be) for some point 
in which the State monopoly shows its superiority. It may, 
however, be pointed out that private carriers do not cry to be 
let off, but rise to the requirements of the occasion, provide 
additional facilities, and all the time by prodigal advertisement 
solicit rather than deprecate the patronage of the public. It 
should, moreover, be borne in mind that the services most 
liable to break down at times of pressure partake more or less 
of the nature of monopolies. The Post Office and the railway 
system are liable to break down, but the ordinary services 
which are bought and sold in the open market do not break 
down. The moral is obvious. Let us have no more monopolies 
than are, absolutely necessary. Let human ingenuity do its 
best to make free exchange of service everywhere the rule. 
It is difficult to see why this rule should not apply to the 
Post Office. 

Again, the cessation of postal deliveries during the recent 



IX.] The Evils of State Trading, 325 

strike among the postmen furnishes a lesson to the commercial 
world which should act as a warning to the public not to en- 
courage a State monopoly in the means of carrying everything. 
To-day, with the various private carriers and railway com- 
panies, a strike among the servants of any particular company 
is fraught with comparatively small inconvenience to the public. 
All our large commercial and industrial centres are supplied 
by several distinct railways, each competing with the others 
for public favour and patronage. So that in the event of 
a strike taking place among the servants of one railway 
company running between Manchester and London, goods 
and passengers would simply be carried by the others. But 
if all the means of communication were in the hands of the 
State, and its underpaid and overworked servants came out on 
strike, the trade and commerce of the country would be para- 
lysed, and wholesale disaster and ruin would ensue before the 
stupidity and wooden-headedness of State officialism could be 
brought to realise the situation and devise a remedy. 

It is not in the Post Office alone that State-trading stands 
self-condemned. Evils, direct and indirect, must result from 
the State undertaking functions which can only be properly 
performed under ever- varying conditions by a free initiative, 
whose very existence depends on its ability to provide constant 
and adequate satisfaction of public wants. And if those 
persons who demand the municipalisation of this industry, and 
the nationalisation of that, would only direct their attention 
to the State monopolies with which we are pestered at present, 
they would have demonstrated to them the inherent rottenness 
of the principles which they so loudly advocate, and would 
discover that after all private enterprise, stimulated by the 
necessity and advantage of mutual service, was the principle 
which alone could make for improvement, success, and pro- 
gress, to all of which State-trading is essentially prohibitive. 

Fredekick Millar. 



FREE LIBRARIES. 



M. D. O'BRIEN. 



X. 

FBEE LIBRARIES. 

A Feee Libeaey may be defined as the socialists' continu- 
ation school. While State education is manufacturing readers 
for books, State-supported libraries are providing books for 
readers. The two functions are logically related. If you may 
take your education out of your neighbour's earnings, surely 
you may get your literature in the same manner. Literary 
dependency has the same justification as educational de- 
pendency; and, no doubt, habituation to the one helps to 
develop a strong desire for the other. A portion of our 
population has by legislation acquired the right to supply 
itself with necessaries and luxuries at the cost of the rates. 
The art of earning such things for themselves has been 
rendered superfluous. Progress therefore halts because this 
all-important instinct has fallen into disuse. At a point the 
rates will bear no more, and those who depend on them for 
their pleasures are doomed to disappointment. They are 
entitled to our pity for the helpless condition into which the 
system contracts their faculties and their character. Those 
who have been compelled to accept a semi-gratuitous educa- 
tion, which is not, in all probability, the sort of education 
they would have chosen for themselves, but which is intended 
to create a taste for reading, can hardly be expected to relish 
paying the market value for their books and newspapers. 
They have been taught to read at other people's expense, and 
why should they not be provided with books in the same easy 
way ? It is not at present proposed to supply them with fools- 



330 A Plea for Liberty, [x. 

cap, &c., in order that they may ' keep up ' their writing pro- 
ficiency, but no doubt this is a luxury reserved for the near 
future. No doubt this ' cheap ' way of getting literature helps* 
to throw light on the fact that so many public books are 
injured by bad usage, and defaced by marginal notes. That 
which is got for nothing is valued at nothing. Possibly the 
advocates of literary pauperism will see little force in the 
argument that if readers were left to pay for their own 
books, not only would books be more valued, but the 
moral discipline involved in the small personal sacrifice 
incurred by saving for such a purpose, would do infinitely 
more good than any amount of culture obtained at other 
people's expense. It is true the Free Library party strongly 
repudiate the charge of dishonesty ; but it is difiicult to see 
any real difierence between the man who goes boldly into his 
neighbour's house and carries off his neighbour's books, and 
the man who joins with a majority, and on the authority of 
the ballot-box, sends the tax-gatherer round to carry off' the 
value of those books. 

We insist most strongly on the injury done to the pau- 
perised recipients of these favours. Want is the spring of 
human efi'ort. Self-discipline, self-control, self-reliance, are 
the habits which grow in men who are allowed to act for 
themselves. The meddlesome forestalling of individual effort, 
which is being carried into mischievous excess, is going far to 
bind our poorer classes for another century of dependence. 

Let us run, as rapidly as possible, through a few of the pleas 
set up by the advocates of this form of municipal socialism. 
Good books, it is said, are out of the reach of the working 
man. Even if this were true, it is no reason for persuading 
him to tax his neighbour for them. If the working man 
cannot come by his books honestly, let him wait until he can. 
But a glance down the lists of some of our publishers will show 
anyone that the statement is not true — is the very reverse of 
truth. When books like ' Pilgrim's Progress,' ' The Vicar of 
Wakefield,' ' Rasselas,' ' Paul and Virginia,' Byron's ' Childe 
Harold,' ' Lady of the Lake,' ' Marmion,' and others, can be 
purchased from Messrs. Dicks at twopence each; when all 



X 



,] Free Libraries. 331 



Scott's novels can be obtained from the same publishers for 
threepence per story ; when, from the same source, any of 
Shakespere's plays can be got for a penny each, it will not do 
to say that the best kind of literature is unpurchasable by 
a class that spends millions a year on alcohol, as well as 
thousands on tobacco and other luxuries. Three or four 
pence, which even comparatively poor people think nothing 
now-a-days of spending on an ounce of tobacco or a pipe, will 
buy enough of the best literature to last an ordinary reader at 
least a week or a fortnight. And when the book is read, there 
is the pleasure to be derived from lending or giving it to a 
friend, and of accepting the loan or gift of his in return ; a 
custom that largely obtains in country districts where no 
socialistic collection of unjustly gotten books exists to hinder 
the development of personal thrift, or poison the springs of spon- 
taneous generosity. Lying on the table where this is written 
is a list of the works published in Cassell's National Library. 
How some of the old book-lovers who are gone — who lived in 
the days when the purchase of a good book involved some 
personal sacrifice — would have appreciated this valuable 
library ! Here are 208 of the world's best books, each one of 
which contains some 200 pages of clear readable type. The 
published price is threepence each ; but a discount of twenty- 
five per cent, is allowed when four or five or more are purchased. 
It would be a waste of space to give the entire list ; but a few 
typical examples may be taken. Here are the Essays of Lord 
Macaulay; here are works by Plutarch, Herodotus, Plato, 
Xenophon, Lucian, F^nelon, Voltaire, Boccaccio, Goethe, and 
Lessing — in English, of course. Here is Walton's ' Complete 
Angler,' Goldsmith's 'Plays,' Bacon's 'Wisdom of the Ancients' 
and 'Essays.' Here are works by Burke, Swift, Steele and 
Addison, Milton, Johnson, Pope, Sydney Smith, Coleridge, 
Dickens, Landor, Fielding, Keats, Shelley, Defoe, Dryden, 
Carlyle, Locke, Bohngbroke, Shakespere, and many others. All 
Shakespere's plays are here complete, and each play is accom- 
panied by the poem, story, or previous play on which it is 
founded. Here, for example, is the last of the series as yet 
published, 'All's Well that Ends Well' ; it contains a transla- 



332 A Plea for Liberty. [x. 

tion of the story of Giletta of Narbona from Painter's 'Palace of 
Pleasure ' : it is worth threepence to a student, if only for show- 
ing the difference between raw material and finished product. 
Hundreds of new novels, including some of those of Thackeray, 
Kingsley, Dickens, Lytton^ and other well-known authors, are 
to be obtained in most places for 4ic?., and their second- 
hand price is less still. Considering the marvellous cheap- 
ness of good books, it is difficult to understand how any- 
one can either blackmail his neighbour for them, or encourage 
working-men to do so. If a man will not deduct a few 
coppers now and then from his outlay in other luxuries to 
purchase literature, he cannot want literature very badly ; if 
he does not value books sufficiently well to buy them with 
his own earnings he does not deserve to have them bought 
for him with other people's earnings. That poor women and 
others, who are often the sole support of a large family of 
children, should have their hard earnings confiscated to 
maintain readers — many of them well-to-do — in gratuitous 
literature, is an injustice not to be palliated by all the hollow 
cant about culture and education so freely indulged in at the 
present time. Some time ago there was a discussion on ' the 
sacrifice of education to examination.' There is another question 
quite as serious — the sacrifice of justice to so-called education. 
But, we are told, the educational value of Free Libraries 
is so great as to outweigh all other considerations. Some 
estimate will shortly be given of this value, but just now it 
is not out of place to inquire what is meant by this mis- 
leading term, education. What is it to be educated? I am 
a farmer, let us say, and my fathers have been farmers for 
generations back. Heredity has done something to fit me 
for a farm life, as it has fitted the Red Indian for his 
hunting grounds. But I have a son whose tastes are similar 
to my own. I was bred up on the farm, and accustomed 
to rural work from infancy. I have thus acquired a prac- 
tical knowledge which life-long experience alone can give. 
Naturally I decide to give my son the same education. No, 
no, says the State, you must send your children to this school 
for some ^N^b or six of the best hours of every day ; we cannot 



X.] Free Libraries, 333 

allow you to bring them up in ignorance. Now what does 
this mean? It means that just at the time when a child 
is beginning to form his tastes, just at the period when the 
daily habituation to the simple duties of farm life would 
lay the foundation, both of sound health and practical 
knowledge, he is taken out of the parent's control, and sub- 
jected to a mind-destroying, cramming process, which excludes 
practical knowledge and creates a dislike for all serious 
study — for force is always the negation of love. And this, 
forsooth, is education ! This is fitting men and women for 
the practical duties of a world in which the largest proportion 
of the work requires no book learning to do it ! The pulpit 
and the press, the guides of popular opinion, have put it about 
that there is nothing like books, the shoemaker has been heard 
to make the same remark about leather, and our School Board 
mill does its best to turn out the article ^ clerk ' of a uniform 
pattern. When shall we learn that the only useful education 
for nineteen out of every twenty is one which develops a 
quick ear, a sharp eye, a strong well-knit and muscular 
frame, and that it is not to be got by repeating lessons, 
but by continual contact with the facts of everyday life; 
for thus only can children acquire a practical knowledge of 
the world in which their future life has got to be lived. 

It is hardly necessary for us to say that we have no objec- 
tion, either for ourselves or for our neighbours, to novel reading. 
On the contrary, we regard it as a legitimate form of recreation. 
All we argue is that it is not a luxury which should be paid 
for out of the rates. Now, to listen to the advocates of Free 
Libraries one would imagine that these institutions were only 
frequented by students, and that the books borrowed were for 
the most part of a profound and scholarly character. But the 
very reverse of this is the case. The committee of the Black- 
pool Free Library, in their Beport for the year 1887-8, say : — 
' Works of fiction and light literature enjoy the greatest degree 
of popularity, each book circulating eleven times in the year, 
while the more instructive books in the other classes circulate 
only once during the same period.' The following table, taken 
from page 5 of the Blackpool Report, shows ' the number of 



334 



A Plea for Liberty. 



[X. 



works in the Library in each class, the number of issues in 
each class, the average number of times each work in each class 
has been issued, and the daily average issue in each class : ' — 



Classification of "Works. 


Number 

of 
Works. 


Number 
of 

Issues. 


Average No. of times 
each work has circu- 
lated during the year. 


Daily 

Average 

Issue. 


Class A.— Theology, Philosophy, &c. 

„ B. — History, Biography, Travels 

„ 0. — Law, Commerce, &c. . . 

„ D. — Science, Art 

„ E. — Fiction and Poetry, and ) 
General Literature . . \ 


359 

I416 

144 

496 

3785 


199 

2700 

100 

990 

41199 


0-5 
1.9 

0.7 
2.0 

II-O 


0.7 
9.0 

0-3 

3-4 

137.0 


Total . . 


6200 


45188 


8.5 


150.2 



No wonder is it, after such results as this, that the Committee 
should express the opinion ' that the rich stores of biography, 
history, travels, and works of science and art which have 
been added in recent years are deserving of greater attention 
than has hitherto been given to them.' 

It will be seen that in the above table novels, poetry and 
general literature are all lumped together. The usual and 
more satisfactory custom is to classify fiction by itself. The 
following tables, taken from page 7 of the Report of the Cam- 
bridge Free Libraries for 1888-9, shows the work done there 
during something over thirty years (see Table A). A similar 
return is given (in Table B) for the Norwich Free Library. 

The aggregate yearly issue of course varies in different 
towns. We print a table taken from page 1 8 of the eighth 
annual Report of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Free Library 
(see Table C). 

We give also a balance-sheet which will serve to show the 
- kind of expenses attendant on these institutions (Table D). 

Of course the cost of a Free Library varies with the amount 
reahsed by the rate which is levied on the assessed rentals 
of householders. Subjoined are two tables, taken from the 
second and third annual Reports of the Yarmouth Free 
Library, which show both the amount paid and the work 
done for it in a number of boroughs in different parts of 
the country (Table E). 



X.] 



Free Libraries, 



335 



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340 A Plea for Liberty, [x. 

The rate is limited by law to a penny in the pound. There 
are, however, various devices by which it may be raised. The 
most usual is to smuggle a clause into a ' Local Improvement 
Act ' or ' Omnibus EilL' The following letters were received 
in reply to an inquiry on this point : — 

WiGAjT Fkee Public Libraut, 

February nth, 1890. 
Dear Sir, — The clause we have obtained for increasing the rate to 2d. was 
contained in a local Act (or omnibus Bill), which included as well many other 
matters relating to other departments of the Corporation. The Mayor of 
Wigan took the chair at a public meeting of the ratepayers, and the Bill was 
approved by a majority of those present. No poll was taken or asked for. 
Very few libraries are rated at less than id. in the £. I do not believe they 
could work at all successfully on less except in the case of very large centres, 
producing a large return. I do not know of individual cases of libraries on 
less than a. id. rate. 

I am, yours truly, 
M. D. O'Brien. H. T. Folkakd. 

Town Hall, Preston, 

February nth, 1890, 
There was no poll on the Bill which contained the power to increase the 
Free Library rate to i^d. 

H. Hamer, 
M. D. O'Brlen. Town Clerk. 

Oldham, 
February 12th, 1890. 
Sir, — The Council of this borough obtained power to levy a higher rate than 
Id. in the £ through an Improvement Bill, which, I believe, passed the House 
of Commons in 1865. 

Yours faithfully, 

Thos. W. Hand, 
M. D. O'Brien. Chief Librarian. 

Free Library, NoTTiNaHAM, 

February iith, 1890. 
Dear Sir, — Our library rate is only xd. in the £, though we get a separate 
allowance from the Council of £1500 per year for support of nine or ten 
reading-rooms in different parts of the borough. 

Yours truly, 
M. D. O'Brien, Thomas Dent. 

Leicester Free Public Library, 

February nth, 1S90. 
Dear Sir, — A poll was not taken when the library rate was increased to 2d. 
in the £ 1. The present levy is x\d., which is allotted by the Council to three 

^ When the article on Libraries in Leicester rate was ^d. in the £. It 
the present edition of the Encydo- is a common argument of the Free 
paedia Britannica was written the JLibrary agitators to tell the rate- 



X.] Free Libraries, 341 

committees, Free Library, Museum, and Art Gallery. When the rate was in- 
creased a clause was inserted in the local Act. 

Yours faithfully, 
M. D. O'Brien. C. Kikby. 

Reference Library, Birmingham, 

Februay-y 20th, 1890. 
Dear Sir, — The Free Libraries' rate in Birmingham for last year (1889) was 
i-2'jd. in the £. 

Yours truly, 
M. D. O'Brien. J. D. Mullins. 

But although the nominal and frequently exceeded limit 
is now one penny in the pound, there is no knowing how 
soon it may be raised. Already the Library Association of 
the United Kingdom, a body composed of librarians whose 
bureaucratic instincts naturally impel them to push their 
business by all possible means, has awarded a prize of ten 
guineas for a draft Library Bill, which, among other things, 
permits a twopenny instead of a penny rate. ' But,' says 
the Daily News of Oct. 4th, 1889, ' the feeling appeared to be 
unanimous that it would be unwise to put this forward as a 
part of the Association's programme, as it would enormously 
increase the opposition to the adoption of the Act in new 
localities.' No regard for the ratepayers' pockets holds them 
back ; but only a fear of injuring business by frightening the 
bird whose feathers are to be plucked. Were it not for this 
the Bill would be pushed forward, and those ratepayers who 
have voted for the adoption of the Act in the belief that no 
more than one penny can be levied, would have the rate 
suddenly doubled over their heads without knowing it. 
Perhaps, after all, it would serve them right ^. 

payers that the library rate will only proposed, '' that in the opinion of this 

be ^d. in the £. This was done at association the time has come when the 

Hastings, where the Acts were re- essential necessity of public libraries 

cently rejected by a majority of more as an extension of the compulsory 

than three to one. national education being recognised, 

^ Free Life of loth Oct., 1890, illus- the question of establishing libraries 

trates the greediness of officialism for be no longer left to a plebiscite, and 

power in the following : — that the establishment of a suitable 

* The Pall Mall Gazette reported (Sep- libraiy in every district as defined 

tember 20) that, at the Library Asso- under the Acts be compulsory." He 

ciation at Reading, Mr. MacAlister expected that the resolution would 



342 



A Plea for Liberty, 



[X. 



The enormous amount of light reading indulged in by the 
frequenters of Free Libraries leads us to expect that these 
places are largely used by well-to-do and other idlers. And 
this is exactly what we find. Free Libraries are perfect 
'god-sends' to the town loafer, who finds himself housed 
and amused at the public expense, and may lounge away 
his time among the intellectual luxuries which his neigh- 
bours are taxed to provide for him. Says Mr. MuUins, the 
Birmingham librarian, ^ No delicacy seemed to deter the poor 
tramp from using, not only the news-room, but the best seats 
in the reference library for a snooze. Already the Committee 
had to complain of the use of the room for betting, and for 
the transaction of various businesses, and the exhibition of 
samples, writing out of orders, and other pursuits more suited 
to the commercial room of an hotel.' And referring to 
another Free Library, the same authority continues : — ' In the 
Picton Boom of the Liverpool Library, alcoves were once pro- 



be lost, as on other occasions, but he 
should move it year after year till it 
was carried. Mr. Tedber said they 
would be laughed at if they passed 
such a resolution just now. Mr. Mac- 
Alister said he was aware of the 
objections and the dreadful things 
that would be said if they passed the 
resolution, but it seemed to him 
absurd that libraries should be the 
only institutions whose establish- 
ment depended on a popular vote. It 
seemed to him a reproach to civilisa- 
tion and to the latter end of the 
nineteenth century that such should 
be the case. If he had moved such 
a resolution before compulsory educa- 
tion was adopted he could understand 
that the arguments against it would 
have been strong indeed ; but we com- 
pelled people to read, some of whom 
did not want to, and he considered 
it a cruel thing to create a want the 
country was not prepared to supply. 
He held that to make it compulsory* 
to establish free libraries was the 
logical outcome of the Education Act. 



The resolution was negatived hyfour votes 
— 33 to 29. A few more MacAlisters 
scattered about the country, and 
people will begin to see what a 
weapon taxation is to put into the 
hands of logical fanatics, starting 
from a false premiss. In some parts 
of the world there is a law obliging a 
man who has a vote to record it ; 
perhaps Mr. MacAlister will propose 
presently that we should be obliged 
to read the books in his libraries. 

'■ What is interesting to observe in 
all these matters is that the com- 
pulsion-fanatics have given up the 
idea of the people choosing for them- 
selves what is good for them. That 
pretence is worn out and thrown on 
one side, and whatever the busy- 
bodies think good for body or soul, 
that is to be established forthwith. 
How ludicrous this reign of busy- 
bodydom would be, if it were not for 
the rather dismal fact that so few 
people take the trouble to fight the 
busy-bodies resolutely.' 



X.] Free Libraries. 343 

vided with small tables, on which were pens^ ink, &c., but it 
was found that pupils were received in them by tutors, and 
much private letter- writing was done therein ; so that when 
a respectable thief took away £%o worth of books they were 
closed ^.' 

After the cant usually indulged in by the officials of 
literary pauperism such candour as this is positively refreshing. 
It is seldom the high priest allows us to look behind the 
curtain in this fashion. As a rule, the admission is much less 
direct, and can only be gathered from a careful analysis of the 
statistics. According to the Bristol Report for last year, there 
were 416,418 borrowers during the twelve months preceding 
December 31, 1889: of these 148,992 are described as having 
'no occupation.' The Report of the Atkinson Free Library 
of Southport informs us that out of the 1283 new borrowers 
who joined the library last year, ^^i^ are written down 
as of 'no occupation.' At the same town, in the years 
1887-8, there were 641 who, according to the report, were with- 
out any occupation, out of a total of 148 1. According to the 
annual Report of the Leamington Free Public Library for 
1888-9, 187 made a return ' no occupation,' out of a total of 
282 applicants. In the Yarmouth Report for the same year, 
out of a total of 3085 new borrowers, 1044 are described as of 
' no occupation ' ; the report for the previous year states the 
proportion as follows: — Total of borrowers, 2813; 'no occu- 
pation/ 1078; in the year before that the total was — 3401 ; 
'no occupation,' 1368. 

Some reports give a fuller analysis of the different classes 
of people who use the libraries to which they refer. In the 
Wigan Report for last year we are told that y%'>,Z^ people 
made use of the reference library in that town during 1888-9. 
The largest items of this amount are given as follows: — 
Solicitors, 1214 ; clergy, 903 ; clerks and book-keepers, 152 1 ; 
colliers, 961 ; schoolmasters and teachers, 801 ; architects and 
surveyors, 418; engineers, 490; enginemen, 438. At New- 

^ Report of a Conference in Bir- in the British and Colonial Stationer, 6th 
mingham of the Library Association Oct., 1887. 
of the United Kingdom, published 



344 A Plea for Liberty. [x. 

castle-on-Tyne, last year, there were 11,630 persons used the 
reference library, and only 3949 of these were of 'no occu- 
pation.' Yet, notwithstanding the numerical weakness of the 
latter, they managed to consult nearly half the books that were 
consulted during that year. The total number consulted 
was 36,100; and 16,800 were used by people who had 'no 
occupation.' And this is legislation for the Working Classes ! 
There is little doubt that at least forty-nine out of every 
fifty working-men have no interest whatever in these insti- 
tutions. For one penny they can buy their favourite news- 
paper, which can be carried in the pocket and read at any 
time ; whereas if they wanted to see a paper at a Free Library 
they would generally have to wait half an hour or an hour in 
a stuffy room, without being allowed to speak during the 
time. The following sensible remarks are from the pen of one 
who has risen to an honourable position from a very humble 
beginning without the aid of Free Libraries or Board Schools : — 

Not long ago a conference of working men was held at Salford to consider 
the question of rational amusement, when, in reply to a series of questions, 
it was stated that Free Libraries were not the places for poor, hard-working 
men, who had social wants which such libraries could not gratify. It was 
argued that people who went to work from six in the morning till six at night 
did not want to travel a mile or so to a Free Library. Music, gymnastics, 
smoking and conversation rooms, and other things were suggested, but in 
summing up the majority of replies, it appeared that amusement rather than 
intellectual improvement, or even reading, was what was most wanted by 
men after a hard day's toil. This appears to have been realised in the erec- 
tion, according to Mr. Besant's conception, of the Palace of Delight in the 
east end of London. 

The truth is that a Free Library favours one special section 
of the community — the book-readers — at the expense of all the 
rest. The injustice of such an institution is conspicuously 
apparent when it is remembered that temperaments and tastes 
are as various as faces. If one man may have his hobby paid 
for by his neighbours, why not all % Are theatre-goers, lovers 
of cricket, bicyclists, amateurs of music, and others to have 
their earnings confiscated, and their capacities for indulging 
in their own special hobbies curtailed, merely to satisfy 
gluttons of gratuitous novel-reading ? A love of books is a 
great source of pleasure to many, but it is a crazy fancy to 



X.] Free Libraries. 345 

suppose that it should be so to all. If logic had anything to 
do with the matter we might expect to hear proposals for 
compelling the attendance of working men at the Free Library. 
But surely in this nineteenth century men might be trusted 
to choose their own amusements, and might mutually refrain 
from charging the cost thereof to their neighbours' account. 
This pandering to selfishness is bad for all parties, and doubly 
so to the class it is specially intended to benefit. 

The following imaginary dialogue will perhaps serve to 
show the inherent injustice of literary socialism. 

A and B earn is. each by carrying luggage. Says J. to 5 : 
'I am in favour of circulating books by means of a subscription 
library ; from this is. I therefore propose to deduct id. in 
order to compass my desire. There is my friend (7, who is of 
the same opinion as myself, and he is willing to subscribe his 
quota to the scheme. We hope you will be willing to subscribe 
your mite, but if not, we intend to force you to do so, for, as 
you know, all private interests must give way to the public 
good.' 

' Perhaps so,' replies 5, ' but then, you see, I have my own 
opinions on the subject, and I do not believe that your method 
of supplying literature is the best method. Of course I may 
be wrong, but then I am logically entitled to the same freedom 
of thought and action as you yourself are. If you are entitled 
to have your views about a " Free " Library and to act upon 
them, I am equally entitled to the same liberty, so long as I 
don't interfere with you. I don't compel you to pay for 
my church, my theatre, or my club ; why should you compel 
me to pay for your library ? For my own part I don't want 
other people to keep me in literature, and I don't want to keep 
other people. I refuse therefore to pay the subscription.' 

'Very well,' rejoins J., 'if that is the case I shall proceed 
to make you pay ; and as I happen to represent a numerical 
majority the task will be an easy one.' 

' But are we not man and man,' says 5, ' and have not I 

the same right to spend my earnings in my own way as you 

have to spend yours in your way ? Why should I be compelled 

to spend as you spend % Don't you see that you are claiming 

24 



34^ A Plea for Liberty, [x. 

more for yourself than you are allowing to me, and are sup- 
plementing your own liberty by robbing me of mine 1 Is this 
the way you promote the public good ? Is this your boasted 
free library ? I tell you it is founded upon theft and upon the 
violation of the most sacred thing in this world — the liberty of 
your fellow man. It is the embodiment of a gross injustice, 
and only realises the selfish purpose of a cowardly and dishonest 
majority.' 

' We have heard all this before,' replies A^ ' but such con- 
siderations must all give way before the public good. We are 
stronger than you are, and we have decided once and for all 
that you shall pay for a "Free" Library; don't make un- 
necessary resistance, or we shall have to proceed to extremities.' 

And, after all, the so-called Free Library is not really free 
— only so in name. If the penny or twopenny rate gave 
even the shabbiest accommodation to anything like a fair 
proportion of its compulsory subscribers, there would not 
be standing room, and the ordinary subscription libraries 
would disappear. According to Mr. Thos. Greenwood, who 
in his book on ' Free Libraries ' has given a table of the 
daily average number of visitors at the difierent Free 
Libraries distributed up and down the country, there is 
only one per cent., on an average, of visitors per day of 
the population of the town to which the library belongs 
accommodated for a rate of one penny in the pound, — some- 
times more, sometimes less; — but the general proportion is 
about one per cent. Now -y^^hat do these facts mean ? If it 
costs one penny in the pound to accommodate so few, what 
would it cost for a fair proportion to receive anything like 
a share that would be worth having? Even now ifc is a 
frequent occurrence for a reader to wait for months before he 
can get the novel he wants ^. Says Mr. George Easter, the 



^ This is not mere theory. I have it,andoften,if you did get it, the books 

before me a letter from a friend in were in such a dirty condition as to 

which he says he has ceased to borrow detract from the pleasure of reading 

books from the Sheffield Library be- them.' On one occasion when the Shef- 

cause 'if you wanted any popular fie- field Central Library was opened after 

tion you had great difficulty in getting a holiday, the books having all been 



X 



] Free Libraries, 347 



Norwich librarian : — ' Novels most read are those by Ainsworth, 
Ballantyne^ Besant, Braddon, Collins, Craik, Dickens, Fenn, 
Grant, Haggard, Henty, C. Kingsley, Kingstcm, Edna Lyall, 
Macdonald, Marryat, Oliphant, Payn, Reade, Reid^ Verne, 
Warner, Wood, Worboise, and Young ; of those underlined (in 
italics) the works are nearly always out ^.' The fact is^ the Free 
Library means that the many shall work and pay and the few 
lounge and enjoy ; theoretically it is free to all, but practically 
it can only be used by a few. 

While there is such a run on novels, solid works are at 
a discount. At Newcastle-on-Tyne during 1880-81 we find 
that 2100 volumes of Miss Braddon's novels were issued (of 
course some would be issued many times over, as the whole 
set comprised only thirty-six volumes), while Bain's ' Mental 
and Moral Science ' was lent out only twelve times in the 
year. There were 1320 volumes issued of Grant's novels, and 
fifteen issues of Butler's 'Analogy of Religion ' ; 4056 volumes 
of Lever's novels were issued, while Kant's ' Critique of Pure 
Reason' circulated four times; 4901 volumes of Lytton's 
novels were issued, while Locke ' On the Understanding ' 
went eight times. Mill's ' Logic ' stands at fourteen issues as 
against Scott's novels, 3300 ; Spencer's ' Synthetic Philosophy ' 
(8 vols.) had forty- three issues of separate volumes ; Dickens' 
novels had 6810; Macaulay's 'History of England' (10 vols.) 
had sixty-four issues of separate volumes. Ouida's novels had 
1020 ; Darwin's 'Origin of Species' (2 vols.) had thirty-six 
issues ; Wood's novels, 148 1. Mill's ' Political Economy ' had 
eleven issues; Worboise's novels, 1964. Smith's 'Wealth of 
Nations' (2 vols.) had foui-teen issues ; Collins' novels, 1368. 

called in for inspection, there were It was found that vast numbers of 
about half a dozen people at the door people used the library only to get at 
ready to rush in and get the latest the newly published novels, which 
popular novels before the rest of the in many cases are issued at 31s. 6d. 
public could secure them. The the set of three volumes. And it 
difficulty of getting any particular must be admitted that there is some- 
novel is so great. thing very arbitrary in taxing the 
^ A few years ago the authorities general public for a library,, and then 
had to take strong measures in the preventing them from seeing the only 
interests of students against the novel books they care to read, 
reading users of the British Museum. 



34^ A Plea for Liberty, [x. 

'No worse than in other libraries,' it may be said; 
' knowledge is at a discount : sensation at a premium every- 
where ! ' Perfectly true ; but are people to be taxed to give 
facilities for this % Novel reading in moderation is good : the 
endowment of novel reading by the rates is bad — that is our 
contention. And when it is remembered that any book requir- 
ing serious study cannot be galloped through, like a novel, in 
the week or fourteen days allowed for use, it becomes at once 
evident that this gratuitous lending system is only adapted for 
the circulation of sensation, and not for the acquirement of real 
knowledge. It would be interesting to know what portion of 
a book like Kant's ' Critique of Pure Keason,' or like Smith's 
' Wealth of Nations,' was studied, or even read, during the 
year ! And this is the sort of thing people allow themselves 
to be rated and taxed for ! This is progressive legislation, and 
its opponents are backward and illiberal ! 

Free Libraries are typical examples of the compulsory 
co-operation everywhere gaining ground in this country. 
Like all State socialism they are the negation of that liberty 
which is the goal of human progress. Every successful 
opposition to them is therefore a stroke for human advance- 
ment. This mendacious appeal to the numerical majority to 
force a demoralising and pauperising institution upon the 
minority, is an attempt to revive, in municipal legislation, a 
form of coercion we have outgrown in religious matters. 
At the present time there is a majority of Protestants in this 
country who, if they wished, could use their numerical strength 
to compel forced subscriptions from a minority of Catholics, 
for the support of those religious institutions which are 
regarded by their advocates as of quite equal importance to 
a Free Library. Yet this is not done; and why? Because 
in matters of religion we have learnt that liberty is better 
than force. In political and social questions this terrible 
lesson has yet to be learned. We deceive ourselves when we 
imagine that the struggle for personal liberty is over — 
probably the fiercest part has yet to arise. The tyranny 
of the few over the many is past, that of the many over the 
few is to come. The temptation for power — whether of one 



X.] Free Libraries. 349 

man or a million men — to take the short cut, and attempt by 
recourse to a forcing process to produce that which can only 
come as the result of the slow and steady growth of ages of 
free action, is so great that probably centuries will elapse 
before experience will have made men proof against it. 
But, however long the conflict, the ultimate issue cannot be 
doubted. That indispensable condition of all human progress 
— liberty — cannot be permanently suppressed by the arbitrary 
dictates of majorities, however potent. When the socialistic 
legislation of to-day has been tried, it will be found, in 
the bitter experience of the future, that for a few temporary, 
often imaginary, advantages we have sacrificed that personal 
freedom and initiative without which even the longest life is 
but a stale and empty mockery. 

M. D. O^Bkien. 



XL 

THE STATE AND ELECTRICAL 
DISTMIBUTION. 



F W. BEAUCHAMP GORDON. 



XI. 

TEE STATE AND ELECTRICAL 
DISTRIBUTION. • 

On the third of April, 1882, the House of Commons ordered 
to be printed a Bill ' to facilitate and regulate the Supply of 
Electricity for Lighting and other purposes in Great Britain 
and Ireland.' This was the Electric Lighting Act, 1882, in 
embryo ; the first attempt at legislative control, by a general 
Act of Parliament, of an industry that had begun to loom large 
in the public mind. 

Some of the provisions of this Act, and of subsequent enact- 
ments affecting electrical undertakings, constitute what is 
admittedly a new departure in industrial legislation. Yet 
the provisions themselves and their tendency, particular and 
relative, may be said to be almost entirely unappreciated and 
unknown, except by those immediately affected — sometimes 
even by them. Ohms, and volts, and amperes, and other so- 
called 'electrical jargon,' have apparently frightened men 
away from the whole subject. It is hoped, therefore, that a 
short review of the evolution of the provisions and enact- 
ments above referred to, and an examination of some of the 
more important of the questions involved, by one who has 
been concerned in the business of electric supply from its first 
inception in this country, who has given much thought to the 
subject, and who engages to severely ignore anything like 
technical jargon, may prove both interesting and useful. 

The history of parliamentary connection with the subject of 
electrical distribution dated from the Session of 1879, when 
several Bills were promoted by local authorities and others 
praying for powers to supply electric light. This was the 
year of the Paris Electrical Exhibition. Multitudes of people 



354 -^ ^^^^ f^^ Liberty. [xi. 

then realised for the first tnne the beauty of the new illumi- 
nant, and especially its immediate availability, in the form of 
the glow lamp, for domestic no less than for public use. A labo- 
ratory toy, to the lay mind, had been suddenly metamorphosed 
into something practical, something that you could ' turn on 
in your house hke gas,' and a good deal more. And the 
gas companies, in their first startled recognition of the 
appearance of a dangerous rival, swooped down upon it with 
a claim to a monopoly of the streets for lighting purposes. 
The whole subject was referred to a Select Committee of the 
House of Commons. In the Report subsequently presented to 
the House, the Committee, after brushing aside contemptuously 
the monopolist claims of the gas companies, (a) recommended 
that every facility should be given to local authorities to 
carry out, or to procure the carrying out, of experimental 
electric lighting, but (5) expressed the opinion that the time 
was not yet ripe for any general legislation upon the subject. 
Consequent upon that recommendation, seven private Acts of 
Parliament were granted, for a term of ^^^ years (ten years 
in the case of Hull), to as many local bodies, authorising them 
to raise limited sums of money (generally ,^^5000, but in the 
case of Hull and of Liverpool ,^50,000) for the purpose of 
experimenting in the supply of electric light. 

During the three following years huge strides were made, at 
any rate in the popularization of the idea of an early distribu- 
tion of electricity from large centres. Everybody knows, 
many but too well, the history of that short and disastrous 
interregnum, the harvest of the patentee and the company- 
promoter. Every difiiculty was said to have been overcome, 
and electric light as ' the light of the future' became a common- 
place. The House of Commons, on assembling for the Session 
of 1882, found itself inundated with Electric Lighting Bills. 
Patent-owning electric companies, gas companies, gas- 
owning corporations, and corporations unencumbered with 
that dubious property, jostled each other in the eager race for 
statutory powers to supply electric energy. But if the new 
industry was to assume any more important role than that of 
setting up a show-light on a town parade, if it was seriously 



XI.] The State and Electrical Distribution, 355 

to contest, as it was trumpeted to be about to do, the whole 
field occupied by the gas companies, some recognition was 
essential of the duties and responsibilities no less than the 
privileges incident to such a position. No such recognition, it 
must be confessed, or only a very inadequate one, was dis- 
coverable in either of the Bills before the House of Commons. 
The Electric Light Companies sought a kind of roving com- 
mission, to open streets, to erect posts, and to contract with 
local authorities for the supply of electricity, in any part of 
the kingdom. Provisions were of course inserted guarding 
against wanton interference with gas and water mains and 
telegraphic wires, but the promoters were before all things 
owners of patent rights in dynamo machines and lamps, for 
which they were eager to find a market, the more extensive 
the better. The gas companies proposed simply to extend 
to electric supply the provisions of the Gas Acts ; and the 
corporations, gas- owning and other, were also generally con- 
tent with the incorporation in their Bills of legislative enact- 
ments already in force. The Bills differed widely in their 
details, but there was a common want of appreciation of the 
necessities of the case. The general legislation deferred in 
1879, had now become, if not absolutely necessary, at any rate 
very desirable. So much is conceded ; the interests of the 
public and the best interests of the electrical industry itself 
alike required it. 

But legislation of what sort, within what limits ? It is 
here that we arrive at the partiug of the ways. Regulations 
guarding against misuse of the streets ; regulations protecting 
the public, as far as possible, from the danger of a careless 
distribution of electric energy, and penal clauses enforcing 
those regulations ; these were no doubt required. Provisions 
ensuring an impartial and efiicient supply of light at a 
maximum price were perhaps also necessary, though not so 
obviously so, at least at the first, in face of the inevitable 
competition with gas. But these things being premised, the 
electric light would seem to have had special claims to in- 
dulgent treatment, (a) It was known to differ in its very 
essence from all other forms of artificial light, simply glowing 



35^ A Plea for Liberty, [xi. 

in vacuum, consuming no oxygen, and creating no noxious 
fumes. Its use in home life would thus make for healthful- 
ness as well as for beauty. (5) Its supply would provide a 
much-needed outlet for private enterprise and the energy that 
had long drooped under the depression of trade and com- 
merce, (c) It would have to be begun and continued, in 
competition with an illuminant which, however inferior as an 
illuminant, was cheaper, and might be still further cheapened, 
and which had the nine-point advantage of possession. For 
these among other reasons the legislature might have been 
expected to look with encouraging face upon the new candi- 
date for statutory powers. 

But without insisting upon these claims to a * most-favoured ' 
treatment, any Electric Lighting Act intended really to 
'facilitate ' the supply of electric light had, on the face of it, 
one would say, to recognise three essential features. 

(i) It should embody full powers to enable the undertaker 
to generate his electricity, and to distribute it along or under 
the streets to his customers, and it must make the acquisition 
of those powers as easy as possible. 

(2) While strictly guarding the safety and the rights both 
of the public and of previously existing and interested bodies, 
it should not enforce conditions impossible or injurious to 
the economical working out of the problem of electrical 
distribution. 

(3) It should (therefore) give security of tenure sufficient to 
attract the investor and to ensure the full development of the 
industry ; and in this connection special regard should be had 
to any inherent difficulties in the way of such development. 

The Bill referred to at the beginning of this paper was on 
the 17th April, 1882, read a second time in the House of 
Commons, and committed to a Select Committee. Let us see 
what sort of recognition it proposed to give to the principles 
just enunciated. 

Full statutory powers to supply electricity fcr any public 
or private purposes might be obtained : 

(i) By license ; to be granted by the Board of Trade to any 
local authority, company, or person, with the consent of the 



XI.] The State and Electrical Distribution, 357 

local authority having jurisdiction within the area to be 
supplied. This license was to be for any period not exceeding 
five years, to be renewable at its expiration, with the renewed 
consent of the local authority intei'ested. 

Simple and inexpensive as the acquisition of powers under 
this form of tenure would be, it was obviously open to the 
objection that the persons seeking them would be entirely in 
the hands of the local authority. And it was admitted even 
by the Board of Trade that, from simple inertness, or from an 
endeavour to impose unfair terms, or from an indisposition to 
introduce a competing illuminant, where the local authorities 
themselves supplied gas, the indispensable consent might be 
uni-easonably refused. The period, too, was so limited, and 
its renewal so uncertain, nobody could seriously contend that 
this met the necessities of the case. Another form of tenure 
was therefore provided, which would, inter alia, be virtually 
an appeal from the local authority to the Board of Trade and 
to Parliament. This was to be obtained : 

(2) By provisional order ; to be granted by the Board of 
Trade, without requiring such consents as were required to 
the grant of a license, and for such period, whether limited 
or unlimited, as the Board of Trade might think proper. Of 
another (at least implied) form of tenure, that by Special Act, 
nothiug need be said. 

It will be shown presently how far the Board of Trade 
afterwards fell away from this state of grace ; but, keeping in 
mind the avowed object of the Bill, the clause just summarised 
was, one would say, precisely what it should have been. 

The same remarks, with slight modification, may be made 
relative to the provisions contained in the Bill for the regula- 
tion and control of the operations incidental to a system of 
supply. 

But the crucial feature of the Bill was contained in a sub- 
section to the clause authorising the grant of provisional 
orders. 

This sub-section provided that at the expiration of seven 
years from the date of the legal commencement of a provisional 
order, or of any subsequent period of jive years, any company 



35^ A Plea for Liberty, [xi. 

or person supplying electricity within any area should be 
compelled, on requisition, to sell their undertaking to the 
local authority, and to sell it at the then market value of the 
works and plant suitable to the carrying on of the under- 
taking; all other considerations that usually attach to the 
sale of a business (goodwill, profits, compensation for com- 
pulsory sale, &c.) being expressly excluded. 

Does it not read almost like an exquisite bit of irony, the 
description of such a measure as ' a Bill to facilitate .... the 
supply of electricity % ' It must, however, be stated, in fair- 
ness to the framers of this clause, that in introducing the Bill 
to the Select Committee the question ' whether seven years 
was the proper figure or not,' was announced as a question 
for the consideration of the Committee. But the terms of 
compulsory purchase were regarded as an essential feature of 
the Bill, and the clause as it stood indicated very plainly the 
spirit in which the Government proposed to deal with the 
latest industrial application of scientific discovery. 

A large number of witnesses appeared before the Committee 
to give evidence relating to the provisions of this Bill- 
witnesses on behalf of the Corporations and of the Electric 
Light Companies. Having heard all these witnesses, the Com- 
mittee, towards the end of May, formulated certain resolutions, 
which were subsequently embodied in a fresh Bill. 

In this Bill the tenure of supply by private undertakers 
was extended to fifteen years. Certain other amendments, 
and a few new clauses, one of which will demand some 
attention by and by, were added before the Committee rose, 
and then the Bill was reported to the House of Commons. 
Before the close of the Session it had passed through a Lords' 
Committee, and had become the Electric Lighting Act, i88ii. 

With the Act at length before us we have the materials for 
a discussion of the ' facilities ' it gives to the supply of elec- 
tricity, we can mark the advance it records in the direction 
of industrial socialistic legislation. Its provisions were to 
apply * to every local authority, company, or person who might 
by this Act or any license or provisional order granted under 
this Act, or by any special Act to be hereafter passed, be 



XI.] The State and Electrical Distribution, 359 

authorised to supply electricity within any area, and to every 
undertaking so authorised, except so far as may be expressly 
provided by any such special Act ' . . . (Section 2). The Act 
assumes as a postulate the principle that every local authority 
is within its own area the lighting authority. It is in truth 
a Corporations' Act, with clauses, partly permissive, partly 
prohibitive, for outsiders. It will be best therefore to consider 
first its provisions as applying to local authorities. 

The acquisition by them of powers to supply electricity for 
any public or private purposes within their own area, whether 
by license or provisional order, was, in accordance with the 
spirit of the Act, a simple matter of procedure, the provisions 
for which need not be detailed. For powers to supply outside 
their own district (as they then sometimes supplied gas, and 
might reasonably propose to supply electricity) the consent 
had to be obtained, in the case of a license, of the Local Board 
having jurisdiction over such area. As in the Bill previously 
analysed, and applicable equally to local authorities and to 
private undertakers, the license was to run only for a limited 
term, extended in the Act to seven years ; the difference in 
favour of the Corporations being that, of course, no consent, 
other than that of the Board of Trade, was necessary to its 
renewal. The term of the provisional order might be of un- 
limited duration. 

Under either of these forms of tenure ample powers were 
given to them, partly by fresh enactments, partly by the 
incorporation of certain sections of the Land Clauses Acts and 
the Gasworks Clauses Acts, {a) to levy rates for the purpose 
of defraying any expenses incurred either in promoting a 
license or provisional order themselves, or in opposing one 
promoted by any other person ; (6) to bon-ow money on 
security of the rates for the purposes of electric supply ; (c) to 
acquire lands (by agreement, not compulsorily) and patent 
rights, &c., and to construct works, or to contract with any 
company or person for the construction and maintenance of 
such works, or for the supply of electricity ; to break up the 
streets (theii* power to do this without being subject to indict- 
ment for creatiDg a nuisance had hitherto been something 



o 



60 A Plea for Liberty. [xi. 



more than questionable), and, generally, ' to do all such acts 
and things as may be necessary and incidental to such supply ' 
(Sections 7, 8, 10, 11, 12). 

If to shape a perfectly clear course for the immediate 
creation of electrical undertakings by local authorities had 
been the same thing as to ' facilitate the supply of electricity,' 
then the Electric Lighting Act, 1882, would have been an 
unqualified success. But it also claimed to be an enabling 
Act for the furtherance of private enterprise ; this in fact was 
ostensibly its very raison d'etre. Let us see by what pro- 
visions it proposed to justify the claim. 

As by the Bill so by the Act, powers to supply electricity 
were to be acquired by license or by provisional order ; the 
conditions on which they might be obtained were also, with 
mere verbal elaborations, unchanged. The objections to a 
tenure by license have already been sufficiently stated. It 
was a mere tentative system, avowedly for the purpose of 
promoting experiments which no sane responsible capitalist 
would be at all likely to undertake. It has been relegated, 
by common consent, to the limbo of the inoperative. The 
conditions regulating the grant of provisional orders are 
contained in Section 4, Sub-sections 1, 2, 3. The local con- 
sent to the application was, it has been shown, unnecessary. 
Any initial obstruction, for either of the reasons before in- 
dicated, by an intractable Corporation was thus rendered 
impossible. But ample notice had to be given by the promoter 
of his intention to apply for an order ; the order when granted 
was subject to confirmation by Parliament, and, like any 
private Bill, might be opposed and, if valid reasons were 
sho^vn, defeated by the Corporation or by any person interested. 
Such procedure seems to me to have been entirely fair to 
everybody concerned. So far, then, the Act was favourable 
to private. enterprise ; it satisfactorily provided for the easy 
acquisition of statutory powers. 

In the exercise of those powers the undertakers were not to 
prescribe the use of any particular form of lamp or burner, nor 
to show any undue preference either as to the supply of or the 
charges for electricity; and they were to be subject to any regula- 



XI.] The State and Electrical Distribution, 361 

tions and conditions that might be inserted in their order, or 
that the Board of Trade might at any time subsequently think it 
desirable to issue, {d) for defining ' the limits within which and 
the conditions under which a regular and efficient supply of 
electricity was to be compulsory or permissive,' (e) ' for secur- 
ing the safety of the public from personal injury or from fire 
or otherwise,' (/) for ' authorising inspection and inquiry by 
the Board of Trade and the local authority,' (g) 'for the 
enforcement of the due performance of their duties, and for 
the revocation of their powers, in the event of their failing to 
properly carry them out' (Sections 6, 18, 19, 20). 

It may be said generally that the Board of Trade have freely 
exercised the rights and obligations conferred upon them by the 
Act. The provisions of the ' model order ' issued in 1889, and 
the subsequent rules and regulations made for the protection 
of existing interests and of the persons and property of the 
public — all these are stringent, no doubt, and very properly so, 
but they cannot fairly be said, except perhaps in some recent 
attempts by the Postmaster General, to be obstructionist ; they 
impose no burden that cannot well be borne. Except where 
from their position as the local governing body, they were 
obviously exempted, these regulations apply equally to local 
authorities. And with this general statement this part of the 
subject may be finally dismissed. 

There remains the very pith and marrow of the Act — its 
provision for ' security of tenure sufficient to attract the 
investor and to insure the full development of the industry.' 
This, as we have already seen, was considered by the framers 
of the Bill to have been adequately provided for by the grant 
of a tenure of fifteen years, to be terminated in the manner 
and on the conditions summarised in a previous page. The 
House of Commons tacitly acquiesced ; and it was reserved for 
the Lords to make a further extension of the period to twenty- 
one years. Seven years, fifteen years, twenty-one years — such is 
the grudging gradation in the history of this facilitating Act. 
As (assuming the continuance of the present tendency of legisla- 
tion) the application of the terms of this compulsory purdhase 
clause will in all probability be indefinitely extended in the 
25 



362 A Plea for Liberty, [xi. 

future, it will perhaps be well to give the essential part of the 
clause in extenso. Section ^7, then, reads as follows: — 

Where any undertakers are authorised by a provisional oi-der or special Act 
to supply electricity within any area, any local authority, within whose 
jurisdiction such area or any part thereof is situated may, within six months 
after the expiration of a period of twenty-one years, or such shorter period 
as is specified in that behalf in the application for the provisional order or in 
the special Act, from the date of the passing of the Act confirming such 
provisional order, or of such special Act, and within six months after the 
expiration of every subsequent period of seven years, or such shorter period 
as is specified in that behalf in the application for the provisional order or 
in the special Act, by notice in writing require such undertakers to sell, and 
thereupon such undertakers shall sell to them their undertaking, or so much 
of the same as is within such jurisdiction, upon terms of paying the then 
value of all lands, buildings, works, materials, and plant of such undertakers 
suitable to and used by them for the purposes of their undertaking within 
such jurisdiction, such value to be in case of difference determined by arbi- 
tration : Provided that the value of such lands, buildings, works, materials 
and plant shall be deemed to be their fair market value at the time of the 
purchase, due regard being had to the nature and then condition of such 
buildings, works, materials and plant, and to the state of repair thereof, and 
the suitability of the same to the purpose of the undertaking, and, where a 
part only of the undertaking is purchased, to any loss occasioned by the 
severance ; but without any addition in respect of compulsory purchase or of 
goodwill or of any profits which may or might have been or be made from 
the undertaking, or of any similar considerations. 

Read with such provisions as these, the Act says in effect, 
' Get capital, build your electric lighting stations, put down 
your electric conductors, get customers and pay dividends if 
you can. If you fail, all the worse for you ; if you succeed, 
all the better for the local authorities. In other words, " heads 
they win, tails you lose." ' 

Had there been any precedent for such legislation affecting 
any similar industry ? Yes, the Corporations said, the Tram- 
ways Act of 1870. And, in fact the forty-third section of that 
Act is substantially in the same terms as this section. But 
were the conditions attending the initiation and the working 
of the two undertakings in any way analogous ? Compare 
them. The laying of a tramway in any street practically 
means the suspension for the time being of the traffic of that 
street ; and when laid the rails occupy a large portion of the 
surface of the street, to the great detriment, and permanently 
so, of all other traffic. Electric conductors, on the other hand, 



XI.] The State and Electrical Distribution, 363 

would be laid in narrow trenches under or near the footways, 
involving no interference with the traffic of the streets, and 
little with that of the pavements, immediate or prospective. 
The Tramway Company would enjoy during their twenty-one 
years' tenure an unquestioned monopoly ; the Electric Company 
would have to reckon with possible competitors. Again, the 
Tramway Company on making their road and running their 
cars, might reasonably hope for an immediately remunerative 
business ; no educating process is needed to induce a man to 
try a peruiy ride on a tram-car. Widely different would be 
the conditions attending the successful introduction of electric 
lighting. The prejudice of habit, the fear of ' shock,' of fire, of 
failure in the supply, the great initial expense and incon- 
venience of 'installing' the necessary wires and lamps, to 
bring into the house a light which, beautiful and pure as it 
might be, would after all cost more than the light already in 
possession — all these difficulties would have to be slowly and 
painfully overcome, and would necessarily postpone to a distant 
date anything like a general use of the new illuminant. If 
this be so, it follows that even with an indefinite tenure the 
profits on the necessarily large capital of an Electric Supply 
Company would certainly be represented during, say, the first 
two years, by o, and during a further two or three years, 
at least, by a very modest figure indeed. But a tenure of only 
twenty-one years, terminable by the purchase of the under- 
taking at its mere structural value, would seriously endanger 
the company's capacity to earn any dividend at all. This 
point will be best illustrated by a quotation from a recent 
article ^ in The Timies) — 

The amount that would be refunded to the company by the sale of their 
undertaking must of necessity represent but an infinitesimal part of the total 
capital that would have been spent in the building up of the business. This 
deficiency must be provided for somehow. A sinking fund, large in propor- 
tion to the shortness of the tenure, must be set aside out of income for the 
redemption of capital. The larger the sinking fund the higher must the 
charge be for electricity, the more disadvantageously must electric light 
compete with its cheaper rival, gas, and the more restricted, in consequence, 
must be the area of possible supply. . . . The injury would extend to the 
ratepayer whose '■ interests ' are to be so jealously guarded. He would suffer, 

^ Tlie Middleman in Electric Lighting. 



364 A Plea for Liberty. [xi. 

too, by paying an unnecessarily high price for the electricity he would 
consume. 

But the damaging effect of legislation of this character upon 
the development of electrical enterprise does not stop here. 
To quote again from the Timies' article — 

There is another consideration and a very important one. N'obody supposes 
that the last word has been said upon the question of dynamic machinery. 
Electrical science will probably stride onward, to discovery, to improvement. 
Can it be expected that a company which, on arriving at mere maturity has 
to look only for extinction ; can it be expected that such a company would be 
eager, especially during the last few years of its life, to adopt improved 
methods of supply ? Who would supply the capital for the purpose ? It may 
be answered that an arbitrator would be bound to take into his consideration, 
in awarding the price of the undertaking, the greater suitability of the new 
methods for the purpose of the undertaking. Possibly ; but would he award 
anything at all for the old and discarded machinery — machinery, it must be 
remembered, which would still have served to earn dividends ? Here would 
be a dead loss. Thus a short tenure would have also a tendency to discourage 
invention. 

With such obvious differences in the conditions incident to 
the development of the two industries, the legislation affecting 
tramway enterprise was still referred to again and again by 
representatives of local authorities before the Committee upon 
the Bill, as a precedent that ought to be followed in dealing 
with the subject of electrical distribution. It was followed, 
as we have seen. But it was followed,, with a difference of 
the highest importance, to which attention has not yet been 
drawn. Section 19 of the Tramways Act expressly pro- 
vided that notwithstanding the statutory right of the local 
authority to make, or to compulsorily purchase, a tramway, 
'nothing in this Act contained shall authorise any local 
authority to run carriages upon such tramway, and to demand 
and take tolls and charges in respect of the use of such 
carriages.' They might devote it to the gratuitous use of the 
townsfolk, they might lease it to a company or an individual, 
but they could not themselves work it for profit. It is more 
than doubtful whether they have power to purchase the 
rolling-stock at all. So that, as Sir Frederick Bramwell re- 
marked to the Committee, ' There would be nothing to prevent 
the company who had enjoyed the tramway up to the time of 
the .compulsory purchase, from being the persons to offer 



XI.] The State and Electrical Distribution. 365 

themselves as lessees, with the very reasonable prospect that 
they would be taken, knowing more about it, and having 
everything ready,' — and this, although the tramway might 
have been a very profitable concern. 

Thus it will be plainly seen that the Electric Lighting Act 
inaugurated a new principle in industrial legislation. It gave 
to municipal bodies, for the first time (and with every incentive 
to exercise it), the right to confiscate for the general profit, 
without compensation, a business created and developed by 
private enterprise. 

Four years after, in 1886, three Bills proposing 'to amend 
the Electric Lighting Act, 1882,' were introduced into the 
House of Lords. No, i (Lord Rayleigh's Bill) proposed 'to 
place electric lighting undertakings in the same position as 
gas undertakings, both as regards privileges and obligations ' ; 
thus abandoning frankly the very principle — the confiscating 
principle, as it may fairly be called — of the previous Act. 
By this Bill a standard price for the supply of electricity, and 
a standard dividend, were to be fixed ; these were to be 
subject to variation on the well-known principle of the sliding 
scale, as now applied to the prices and dividends of gas 
companies. Any increase of capital beyond that set forth as 
the company's authorised capital in the provisional order, was 
to be ofiered for pubhc tender. The undertaking could be 
purchased only on such terms as might be agreed upon be- 
tween the supplying company and the local authority. No. 2 
(Lord Ashford's Bill), while retaining for local authorities the 
compulsory purchase power, extended the tenure to forty-one 
years, and provided for the sale of the undertaking as a going 
concern. Of these two Bills the first, as placing electric com- 
panies on an equal footing with gas companies, was the fairest, 
both to the new industry and to the public, and the most con- 
sistent with all previous legislation afiecting similar undertak- 
ings. Finally, No. 3 (the Government Bill) proposed simply to 
extend to thirty years, or perhaps longer, the tenure authorised 
by the previous Act ; the terms of purchase, compulsory and 
confiscatory, being retained unaltered. The three Bills were 
committed to a Select Committee of the House of Lords, 



366 , A Plea for Liberty. [xi. 

before wliom a whole crowd of witnesses again appeared, to 
support or to oppose, as their views and interests might 
direct, the various proposals to amend the Act of 188^. 

One thing was clear and indisputable ; that Act had failed, 
utterly failed, as we have seen it was bound to do, to facilitate 
the supply of electricity. Of the fifty-five provisional orders 
granted to over-sanguine Electric Light Companies in 1883, 
only one (the Birmingham Order, under which nothing had 
been done) remained in force. Having legislated with the 
sole idea of preventing a possible future evil, Parliament had 
fully succeeded in making impossible the attainment of 
any present good. But the Corporations to whom such 
facilities had been granted by Parliament, who had some 
of them also obtained provisional orders and private Acts, 
and for whom confiscatory purchase clauses did not exist, 
what had they done to help on the development of electric 
supply ? Nothing. Why should they pull the chestnuts out 
of the fire, when the private capitalist had been ordained to 
do it for them 1 Theirs was naturally enough a policy of 
masterly inactivity. So it was that in 1886 the only central 
electric supply stations to be found in the whole kingdom 
(those at Eastbourne, at Brighton — of very limited propor- 
tions — and at the Grosvenor Gallery, in London), distributed 
their electricity by means of overhead conductors, and without 
statutory powers of any sort. To explain this fact the Corpora- 
tion representatives talked vaguely, and — may it be said 1 — 
ignorantly of the ' engineering difficulties ' which, along with 
the reaction from the wild speculation in electrical securities, 
had stopped the growth of the industry. To this speculation 
and its disastrous efiect, reference has already been made in 
a previous part of this paper. It probably would have acted 
prejudicially upon the investing public, though only for a short 
time ; investors soon recover their equanimity in presence of 
even a reasonably good opening for the profitable employment 
of their capital. But they are largely influenced by the 
opinions of their financial advisers ; and these gentlemen said 
unanimously, 'Don't touch anything electrical under the Act 
of 1882 ; it won't work.' The ' engineering difficulty ' question 



XI.] The State and Electrical Distribiction. 367 

■was all moonshine. On the continent and in America, where 
electrical distribution was no better understood than in 
England, almost every large town had, as a matter of course, 
its central distributing station. If there, why not here ? Sir 
Frederick Bramwell, Professor George Forbes, and Mr. Preece, 
all gave evidence to this effect. They also gave evidence upon 
another point of the greatest importance in this connexion. It 
was this. In neither of the countries referred to had the legisla- 
ture made any attempt to restrict the free action of private 
enterprise. The municipal bodies prescribed regulations for the 
placing of electric conductors, &c. ; they in no case proposed at 
any time to confiscate to their own use the business that might 
be created. Who could gainsay the practical illustration thus 
afforded of the paralysing effect of the new legislation ? 

Well, the Act must be amended. But, again, in what direc- 
tion % The financial witnesses — Sir John Lubbock, Mr. Hucks 
Gibbs, the late Mr. Lionel Cohen, and others — strongly urged 
the abandonment of the confiscatory nature of the purchase 
provisions. Only Bill No. i or No. a, they said, would attract 
capital ; a mere extension of tenure on the old lines would be 
futile. The principle was a vicious one, and would fail again, 
as it had already failed. The Corporations vehemently op- 
posed this; any amendment to the Act of 1882 should, they 
said, continue to recognise both the right of compulsory pur- 
chase, and the sale of the business at the market value of 
the plant. 

When, in 1888, the comparative cessation of the hubbub 
over the General Election and the Irish question again per- 
mitted attention to electrical interests, it was found that the 
Electric Lighting Act, 1888, did, in fact, amend the previous 
Act in the direction clamoured for by the Corporations. 
Section 2 extended the tenure to forty-two years, and the 
optional period thereafter to ten years ; the purchasing condi- 
tions, with one apparently trifling exception, remaining un- 
altered. This exception consisted in the insertion of a 
provision that, in valuing the buildings, works, &c., 'due 
regard' shall be had 'to the circumstance that they are in 
such a position as to be ready for immediate working.' This 



368 A Plea for Liberty, [xi. 

is certainly in favour of the seller ; to what extent it is so, 
time and occasion alone can show. Section 3 provided that the 
Board of Trade might, if they thought fit, vary the terms Upon 
which an undertaker might be required to sell, 'in such 
manner as may have been agreed upon between such local 
authority and the undertakers.' But to balance the conces- 
sion made by Section % to that marauder the private capitalist 
(without whom it seemed that after all electrical distribution 
would never come to be an accomplished fact), it was provided 
by Section i^ that no provisional order should be granted by 
the Board of Trade, except with the consent of the local 
authority interested, unless the Board of Trade should be of 
opinion that, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, 
such consent ought to be dispensed with, in which case they 
might dispense with it accordingly. 

These provisions have been in force for two years. It is 
somewhat early perhaps to discuss the effect they may 
ultimately have, primarily upon the development of the ever- 
broadening industry to which they apply, and, by reflex 
action, upon individual enterprise generally in this country. 
Tendencies may be noted, however, and especially we may 
record already ascertained results. In London, provisional 
orders for the full statutory period have been granted to 
various companies in respect of by far the greater number of 
important parishes — important^ that is, from an electric light- 
ing point of view. Capital, more or less (in some cases, the 
majority, in fact, very much less) adequate to the requirements 
of the districts, has been subscribed, and electric conductors 
have been and are being laid and houses lighted in every direc- 
tion. Here there are no gas-owning local authorities. In the 
provinces, speaking by comparison, scarcely a start has been 
made. Yet during the last Session more than one hundred pro- 
visional orders were applied for. A large number of those 
applications were no doubt of a sufficiently dubious character 
to court and to deserve refusal ; a great many more, however, 
were honestly made by companies prepared to properly 
discharge the duties and responsibilities they sought. In by 
far the greater number of instances, doubtful and good were 



XI.] The State and Electrical Distribution. 369 

alike refused; the local body rarely taking the trouble to 
inquire into the status of the applicant. The local authority 
' objected to any interference with their streets ' ; — and this in 
face of the provisions in the model order enabling them to 
break up the streets and to lay the mains themselves, at the 
cost of the undertaker; — they 'intended to apply for an order 
themselves ' ; they ' owned the gas supply, and feared the 
danger to their securities involved in the introduction of a 
competing light.' These are actual summaries of some of the 
reasons urged against the grant of provisional orders. In one 
case well known to me, that of Barrow-in-Furness, the 
Corporation opposed the grant of an order, solely on the ground 
that there was not a demand in Barrow for electric light. 
They are of course a gas-owning Corporation. The applying 
company satisfied themselves by a canvass of the town, that 
a demand did exist sufficient to justify them in investing their 
money in a supply station; but the Corporation's objection 
was held by the Board of Trade to be a valid one, and the 
order was refused. There is no need to multiply examples ; it 
is sufficient to say that in no single instance during last 
Session was an order granted, without the production of 
the written consent of the local governing body. The con- 
ditional veto granted to Corporations by the Act of 1888 
has in practice become absolute. It would thus seem that 
the whole future of electrical distribution outside London rests 
entirely with local authorities, a large proportion of whom, 
from their position as owners of gas undertakings (upon the 
security of which vast sums of money have been borrowed), 
have the strongest possible motives for delaying, and, if it 
may be, for preventing altogether the development of the 
industry. 

This aspect of the affair has been emphasised by a fresh 
concession to local authorities made by the Board of Trade at 
the beginning of last Session. Reference was made in a 
previous page to one of a few new clauses added by the House 
of Commons' Select Committee to the Bill which afterwards 
became the Act of 1882. That clause (Section 11 in the Act), 
after giving power to local authorities holding provisional 



^^'jo A Plea for Liberty. [xi. 

orders to contract for the construction of works or for the 
supply of electricity, concluded in these words : ' but no local 
authority, company, or person shall by any contract or assign- 
ment transfer to any other company or person, or divest them- 
selves of any legal powers given to them, or any legal liabilities 
imposed upon them by this Act, or by any licence, order, or 
special Act (without the consent of the Board of Trade).' The 
part within parentheses was added by the Lords' Committee ; 
as the Bill left the House of Commons, the prohibition was 
absolute and unqualified. 

In deference to representations made by the Association of 
Municipal Corporations, the Board of Trade decided a few 
months ago to remove that prohibition altogether, so far, that 
is, and only so far, as it affected the interests of Corporations. 
A new clause was thereupon agreed to between the Association 
and the Board of Trade, and was subsequently inserted in all 
orders granted to local authorities, providing that the local 
authority might at any time by deed, to be approved by the 
Board of Trade, transfer to any company or person, for such 
consideration as might be agreed upon, the whole or any part 
of the area included in their order, with all the duties and 
responsibilities incident thereto. 

The importance of such a concession may not be immediately 
evident to the lay reader. It means this. A Corporation — a 
gas-supplying body, let us say, or one whose interests are 
largely controlled by directors and shareholders in a local gas 
company — may obtain a provisional order, without having 
the slightest intention to supply electric energy. They will 
thus shut out effectually any inconveniently enterprising 
individual or company. This order they have the power to 
transfer for a consideration, to farm out on such terms as 
they may think fit to dictate. They would stand in fact in 
the position of middlemen. Would they be likely to offer 
such terms as would facilitate the supply of electricity ? 
Why, as with exquisite naivete they have asked, should they 
cut their own throats? Without for one moment imputing 
deliberate mala fides, it is fairly open to a Philistine to 
doubt whether human nature becomes so impeccable in a 



XI.] The State and Electrical Distribution. 371 

councilman that he may not by accident mistake self- 
interests for public interests. The sound has indeed a familiar 
ring, as if such a thing had already happened. Of course 
there is another side to the question. There are honest 
and well-intentioned Corporations desirous of a supply of 
electric light, who, while fearful to trade with the rate- 
payers' money in a comparatively untried business, are yet 
unwilling to assent to the grant to a company of powers in 
their towns underived from themselves. In their case the 
new clause Tiiay work well. Its general tendency, however, 
seems to be in a retrograde direction, as giving to interested 
bodies wide powers to impose terms which under the Act of 
188^ had proved prohibitory of electrical development. 

The situation, then, created by the Electric Lighting Acts, 
and emphasised in their administration by the Board of Trade, 
may be thus summarised. Local authorities have a preferential 
right to undertake the supply of electricity themselves ; they 
may obtain statutory powers, with the right to farm them out for 
their own profit ; they may assent to the grant of such powers 
directly to private capitalists taking all the risks incident to 
the business of electric supply, while they reserve to them- 
selves, at the expiration of forty-two years, or of such shorter 
time as they may succeed in bargaining for as the price of 
their consent, the comfortable option of purchasing the under- 
taking, if it should be a successful one, at something like an 
'old metal' valuation, or of declining to purchase an un- 
successful one at any price. And this comfortable option 
they may exercise every ten years thereafter. 

It will be obvious from the foregoing analysis that the 
tendency, if not the intention, of such legislation is to dis- 
courage the supply of electricity by private enterprise, and 
thus either to arrest the development of the industry altogether, 
or to throw it into the hands of the local authorities. But are 
trading municipalities such unmixed blessings that we can 
afford to bind down the agent that has made us the foremost 
industrial nation of the world 1 Or, to narrow the issue to 
the special subject of this paper, is electrical distribution one 
of those industries that ouofht to be in such hands 1 



372 A Plea for Liberty ^ [xi. 

The present writer holds anything but pessimistic views as 
to the future of electricity ; still it must not be forgotten that 
the business of electric supply is as yet a speculative one. 
There is no accumulated experience to guide us. Continental 
and American companies do not count. Gas is generally much 
cheaper there, and in a large number of cases their electric 
conductors have been run on poles overhead and cheaply. No- 
body working under the statutory provisions and restrictions 
which now obtain in this country has done so at a profit. 
Dividend-paying data can of course be furnished, and are fur- 
nished, in every case ; their verification has yet to be accom- 
plished. Ought rates to be raised for speculative purposes? 
Again, three or four different systems are employed in London 
by different companies to distribute electric current. We have 
high tension and low tension, alternating currents and con- 
tinuous currents, supply with the agency of accumulators, and 
supply without them. The fittest of these will survive, if either 
survives — for already Mr. Edison is said to have announced 
his confident hope ' to obtain electricity direct, without the 
aid of steam-engines, or of any other motor power.' Which 
is the fittest 1 And are municipal bodies the proper people to 
determine such a question? Kesolve them into their con- 
stituent elements, and Mr. Smith the bootmaker shall confi- 
dentially ask you whether ' volt ' or ' ohm ' is really the 
scientific name for a dynamo machine, and Mr. Jones the 
wine merchant shall make a virtue of the confession that he 
can't for the life of him make out how electricity can be got 
out of coals. Every electrical engineer who has been brought 
into contact with such bodies has met with many Smiths and 
Joneses. And these are the men, such are the electrical 
qualifications of the men (aggregated to the dignity of a local 
authority, of course), who are to determine upon the adoption 
of a system of distribution, ' to levy rates ' (upon the rich and 
the poor alike, upon those that will and those that will not 
use the light for many years to come), ' and to construct 
works,' &c. for the supply of electricity. 

Not only so. They are to be the managing directors of the 
undertaking. It may fairly enough be objected that they both 



XI.] The State and Electrical Distribution, 373 

can and naturally will engage the services of the most com- 
petent engineers available. No doubt. And a cockney with 
confused ideas as to the distinction between a harrow and a 
threshing-machine, may take a farm and engage a head man 
to manage it. But, although he will have the all-powerful 
gain-motive which the councilman has not, will his farming 
operations be likely to be as well or as economically conducted 
as they would be if he had been born a farmer ? It is possible, 
certainly, to lay too much stress upon this point. Public 
spirit is also a powerful factor ; but a controlling uninformed 
public spirit, whose servant the engineer will be, may make 
a pretty mess, witkthe very best intentions, of an undertaking 
so complex as the one we are discussing. Jobbery, or 
anything of the nature of jobbery, could not, of course, 
be respectfully predicated of an English municipality, the 
'scandals' of Salford, and of the Metropolitan Board of 
Works, and the jerry-built school-houses of the London 
School Board, et hoc genus omne, notwithstanding. But 
the Acts apply equally to Ireland, and Englishmen have a 
prescriptive right to say many things of the Irish. Who does 
not see what nice little 'jobs,' under the Electric Lighting 
Acts, will infallibly be perpetrated, in favour of certain well- 
known friends of the ' friends of the ratepayers,' at Curragh- 
macree ? 

Another consideration is the unlikelihood of the employment 
by local authorities of the necessary 'commercial traveller' 
element in the business. Our young giant requires to be 
dressed out to the best advantage, to be introduced and 
praised, to be pushed into public favour. In other words, 
electric energy, in the form of light or of power, is at present 
expensive.. It has advantages that some people think more 
than compensate for its costliness, but they have to be made 
known and repeated. Why should the officials or the members 
of a municipality do this ? It would be no advantage to 
anybody in particular. An example will be eloquent. At 
the beginning of last year the Corporation of Bolton, in 
Lancashire, were asked for their consent to an application by 
a Company for a provisional order. They refused to give it, 



374 -^ Plea for Liberty. [xi. 

intimating that they intended, if there were a sufficient 
demand for the light, to undertake the supply themselves. 
And they issued a circular to ascertain whether such a demand 
did in fact exist. The following is a fair summary of this 
precious circular: 'We propose to charge \od. per Board of 
Trade unit for the current we supply. This will be at least 
double the price of gas ; would you like to have it at the 
price, and for how many years will you undertake to continue 
the use of the light % ' With such advocacy as this, an inven- 
tion had need be born into the world with an aureola. With 
such sponsors, what would have been the fate, not merely of 
electric light, but of nine-tenths of the inventions which, in 
private hands, have transformed society ? 

It is one of the boasted advantages of the conduct of 
electrical undertakings by local authorities, that, while a joint- 
stock company must pay a dividend of 7 or 8 or even 
10 per cent, upon its capital, they can borrow money at 3i per 
cent. ; the difference representing so much profit to the rate- 
payer. But, apart from the preceding considerations, tending 
to disbelief in their capacity to work the undertaking as suc- 
cessfully or as economically as the profit- coveting capitalist 
would do, the extensive exercise of such cheap borrowing 
power, this competition of the public purse with the private 
purse, what effect will it have? Will it not drive the in- 
vestor, who is not content with 3 J per cent., to seek more 
remunerative channels for his money elsewhere ? Capital 
will go out of the country, to promote the success of industries 
which compete with our industries at home. 

But another principle underlies this question, larger and more 
vital still. It may be expressed and illustrated in this way. 
The greatest obstructionists to the advance of electric lighting 
have been and are the gas-owning Corporations. Not because 
they are Corporations, but because they have committed 
themselves, to the extent of very many millions of money, to 
the supply of one particular form of lights which might be 
superseded by the introduction of a competing illuminant. 
In the nature of things it must be so. Municipalities after 
all are but an aggregation of mortal men and ratepayers. 



XI.] .The State and Electrical Distribzction, 375 

Now, the creation of electric supply stations will involve the 
borrowing of one is afraid to say how many more millions 
of money. Well, the world will not stand still to guard those 
millions, any more than it has done in the case of gas. 
Imagines — and for the purposes of the argument it is perfectly 
immaterial whether the supply be undertaken and the millions 
borrowed to-morrow or in forty years' time — imagine the 
discovery of a new form of artificial light, as superior to 
electric light as that is to gas, will not the same battle have 
to be fought over again? We are creating a standing ob- 
struction to progress, so many lions in the path. 

These, shortly stated, are some of the reasons that seem 
to tell forcibly against the policy of placing the supply of 
electric energy in the hands of local authorities, and in 
favour of leaving it, with proper safeguards of the public 
interests, to the care of private enterprise. 

The Electric Lighting Acts exist, however, and a precedent 
threatening to the old form of enterprise generally has been 
established. It is conceded, of course, that by Parliament this 
business of supplying light was looked upon as a special one, 
calling for exceptional treatment. But such special precedents 
are apt to develope into general ones ; and having seen how 
far the legislature has already gone in fettering individual 
effort to encourage the supply ' by the people for the people ' 
of one particular article (which after all is not so great a 
necessity as bread, and no greater a necessity, at any rate, 
than boots), we may pretty confidently hope, or dread, 
according to our views upon such matters, for an almost 
indefinite extension in the same direction. Municipal bake- 
houses, municipal boot factories, every form of industrial 
operation developed into everybody's business in general and 
nobody's in particular — to what Utopian prosperity and 
happiness may we not yet attain ! 

F. W. Beauchamp Gordon. 



XII. 

THE TBUE LINE OF 
DELIVERANCE. 



AUBERON HERBERT. 



26 



XII. 

THE TRUE LINE OF DELIVEBANCE. , 

Most of the evils, even those which in the end may destroy, 
have a remedial character in the earlier stages. They are the 
useful, though often unpleasant, instruments of bringing us back 
into the true path, if we have left it, or of stimulating us to new 
endeavours, in seeking for it. Amongst these scourges, dis- 
agreeable for the moment, but useful as regards the future, the 
New Unionism, with its crude doctrines of sheer force, con- 
straint of anybody and everybody who stand in the way of 
the immediate end, limitation of numbers and excessive prices 
built up on monopoly, ingenious dovetailing of political action 
into unionist action, universal federation with rigid centralisa- 
tion and strict dependence of all parts on the centre, must take 
its place. Few people of clear insight are ready to suppose that 
good of the truest kind is likely to come to the workmen en- 
rolled under these principles. Centralisation, coercion and mono- 
poly, always have been the advance guard of eventual failure 
and suffering, and always will be ; though indirect good, by way 
of experience and healthy reaction, may come from them. No 
man raises, in a country that is not in decadence, the banner of 
retrogression, without influencing others to raise the banner of 
advance. Evil, it is true, provokes evil, but it also provokes 
good ; and perhaps the New Unionism has its own special 
service to perform by leading workmen to reconsider the whole 
question of trades-unions, their relation to capital, and to that 
better future on which we all fasten our eyes. The old Trades- 
Unionism, like many another movement, has been useful in its 
day to the workmen, even though founded on shaky principles. 
It came into existence in a bitter time, when probably no truer 



380 A Plea for Liberty, [xii. 

system could have lived ; it was to the men a first lesson in 
association, developing powers of administration and responsi- 
bility ; it has done much in the way of benefit services ; it gave 
a spirit of independence, and yet was an anti-revolutionary 
force ; and it has taught capital the sharp lesson which was 
needed, at all events during one period of its history, that 
unless the fair claims of the men were respected, trades- 
unionism could throw the whole thing out of gear, and make 
a general mess for everybody concerned. But having said so 
much, it must be confessed that the old Trades-unionism — with 
its many excellent points — has been, as regards great results, 
a failure, and that the new Unionism comes to help to make 
that failure evident. Let us see exactly what is happening 
now. The old Trades-unionism, so far as it was restrictive, 
represented a dam. On the one side of it was skilled labour, 
organised and well paid ; on the other side unskilled labour, 
unorganised and badly paid. As long as that state of things 
lasted. Trades-unionism was in a sort of a way a success — 
for the trades unionist. He was, as was sometimes reproach- 
fully said, the privileged class, the aristocracy of labour ; and 
of course the more a union could restrict the admission 
of members into the trade by limiting the number of 
apprentices, or in other ways, the more it could for the 
moment (for there are always reactions in these things) 
keep up or raise its rate of wages. But the time was sure 
to come when the effort would be made to raise the waters 
on the other side of the dam, and then how would it be with 
the dam ? If the unskilled labour could be organised and its 
price raised, that would mean (employers' profits remaining 
the same, as they are likely to do, being dependent on causes 
very hard to fight against, and adjusted in each .trade by 
what obtains in other trades), that the skilled unionist 
labour would get a lower reward, so far as his wage depended 
not upon his higher skill, but on Trade-union action. The 
efi'ect of all restriction is to diminish production and raise 
prices. The trade which previously had a dam, when other 
trades had not^ w^s at an advantage ; for it was exchanging 
its restricted production against the unrestricted production 



XII.] The Tr2te Line of Deliverance, 381 

of other trades, — a state of things, which was good for it, but 
bad for all others. It was taking itiore and giving less. For 
this reason, as the New Unionists restrict production, the old 
trades will suffer. To give an example, — the effect of the 
Dockers' monopoly is to lessen for all other trades the ad- 
vantage of Free Trade. Imported articles will be dearer in 
price, and the labour of other trades will exchange for less. 

To-day the New Unionists are bettering the teaching of the 
Old Unionists ; and much as my sympathies go with the sober 
part of the Old Unionists, I should be obliged to confess that 
the New Unionists would be right, if the underlying principles 
of Unionism itself were right. Let us see what the New 
Unionists appear to be aiming at. All trades are to be unionised, 
— the unions being sufficiently strong to disregard and coerce, 
when necessary, the outside labour, and yet not too large so as 
to depress the price of labour in the trade itself. Those whom 
it is desirable to bring into the union will be brought in by 
summary methods ; those whom it is desirable to leave out- 
side will be left outside. But as these outsiders are always 
a menace to the unionist, measures will be taken to provide 
at least for a part of them. Of course it is obvious that the 
common rule of a minimum wage acts harshly both on old labour 
and on second-class labour ; since both these classes lose all 
employment where the minimum can be universally enforced. 
It is then at this point that the action of the State is rather 
cleverly brought in to make good the gap which Unionism 
fails to cover. Workshops are to be provided by munici- 
palities and County Councils for the inefficient labour, which, 
left in the employers' hands, would only drag the union price 
down. "What is to be done with the product of such labour, 
which would be produced irrespective of demand, and inde- 
pendently of market price, is a problem which, as far as I 
know, is not yet solved. At the same time the State is to be 
made to serve another purpose. Municipalities and County 
Councils are to pay union price in all their contracts, thus 
giving the key-note of wage. An ordinary employer might 
not be screwed up to the true pitch. He or his customers 
might decline the article at the union price ; but the 



382 A Plea for Liberty. [xii. 

municipality or Council which has once been captured, 
can be made to undertake certain work, and in doing it to 
strike almost any key-note that is desired. The body which 
spends public funds is independent of the market rate, and is 
therefore admirably suited for forcing the pace. 

The crown of the system is the federation of the unions. 
When once federated, the power of all will be lent to one ; and 
the area of subscription being made co-terminous with the 
whole country, and the boycott being duly systematised, both 
the non-conforming employer and the non-conforming work- 
man will be satisfactorily reduced to submission. 

The dream goes still further. What is to be done in one 
country is to be done in all countries ; and just as the trades 
of a country are to be linked together as a whole, so are the 
countries themselves to be linked together. When that is 
done, then and there begins the millennium of labour. 

Now it is a great advantage, in criticising separate mea- 
sures, when we are able to see before us the perfect whole, into 
which the separate measures are some day to be combined. 
For example, we should never judge our socialistic future 
rightly, if we persisted in scanning each measure, that leads 
towards it, separately by itself. It is the same with the details 
of Unionism. We must not simply look to the detached 
struggles of to-day between labour and capital, as expressing 
what Unionism is, but also to the system in its triumph, as it 
will be when, complete in all its parts, it governs the world. 

Having said so much, before reviewing what perfect Unionism 
would mean, let us try and solve the simpler problem by 
seeing what Unionism means in the detached and uncon- 
solidated form in which it exists to-day. Before doing so 
we may all start on the same road. Unionist or non-unionist, 
we are agreed that labour has to win for itself a different and 
a better future. The smooth places of the world are not 
permanently reserved for some of us, and the rough places for 
others. Enormous is the amount of insincere speech that flows 
from the lips and pens of to-day upon this subject. The subject 
is a profitable one in the political market of our time, and 
therefore, as we may be sure, receives its full homage from 



XII.] The True Line of Deliverance. '^Z'}) 

politicians and professional philanthropists ; but still no amount 
of insincerity can alter the great truth, written in the destinies 
of the world, that for everybody's sake the labourer has to climb 
not only to competence and comfort, but to the knowledge, re- 
finement and higher civilisation, which at present are so much 
more easily reached by those who do not labour with their 
hands. That is the work we have to accomplish ; the only 
question is, ' in what manner ? ' 

There are two roads, and only two roads, which offer them- 
selves to us. One is the road of resti'iction, regulation, 
monopoly, and absolute power entrusted to the hands which 
have to win the successive positions, and defend them when 
won ; the other is the road of free action, unlimited com- 
petition, and voluntary association. Now I want to contrast 
these methods, because I believe it only wants time and full 
discussion to convince the greater number of our workmen, 
with their strong instincts in favour of liberty, that all the 
methods of restriction, whether perfect or imperfect, whether 
new or old, are wrong and will only end in disappointment 
after a grievous loss of effort and time. I believe that the 
weight of argument is strongly on the side of liberty of action 
and unrestricted competition, and that we lovers of liberty can 
win the battle, into which we are entering, if we only plead our 
cause efficiently. The coercionists of every kind can offer the 
bribe of immediate results ; but we have in our hands the 
appeal to the truer reason and the higher motives, and the 
battle must at last make for us, if we know how to use our 
weapons. 

Before comparing the two methods, one word as regards the 
Unionism of the past. I have already said how much I think 
we owe to it, and personally it is pleasant to me to recall my 
friendship in former years with some of the old leaders, Mr. 
Guile, Mr. Allan, Mr. Applegarth, Mr. Howell, Mr. Broadhurst 
and others, whom it was my privilege to know, and of whom 
I shall always think and speak with kindness ; but in forming 
a deliberate judgment upon the subject, I can only say that the 
past is not the present, and the circumstances that once made 
Unionism, in the old depressed days of labour, of use to the 



384 A Plea for Liberty. [xii. 

workmen, are so wholly clianged, that the time has come when 
it is right to preach a reformation in the unions themselves, 
and a change in the direction of the efforts and hopes of the 
workmen. 

The question to face is, can Unionism, as we know it, achieve 
the new future of the workmen % I answer no, because, 
speaking of it as a whole, it is founded on distinctly wrong 
principles. If we examine ordinary Unionism and the full 
development of the new Unionism as we have sketched it, we 
shall find the same principles running through both. Unionism 
essentially means the sacrifice of one section of the labourers 
to another section — it means this in more than one sense; 
it means the setting aside of the desires and the judgment of 
the individual for the sake of a common end ; it means tempta- 
tions to coerce ; it means regulation, restriction, and centralisa- 
tion, with all the evils that flow from these fatal methods. 

Let us take the simplest example. 100,000 workmen in a 
trade are negotiating with their employers. Is there any reason 
why the workmen should not act in a body as regards their 
wages ? Every lover of fair play would be inclined to say, 
certainly not ; and if the negotiation were really for the whole 
body, all the units of which were quite voluntarily acting 
together, one serious part at least of the present mischief of 
Unionism would disappear. But the unionist only bargains 
for a part of the 100,000. A union is formed with a certain 
subscription in preparation for emergencies ; and from that 
moment, although certain common interests continue to exist, 
there begins to be a divergence of certain other interests 
between those who are in the union and those outside the union. 
The union, intent on raising wages, finds it must fix a minimum 
of pay below which its members must not go. But either this 
minimum is so low that it is of no service, or else it cuts off 
from employment the old worker and the second-class worker. 
These men are naturally below the minimum. Then, as a 
minimum tends always to be a maximum, it cuts ofi" the best 
worker, who naturally looks for a larger return from his skill 
and industry. Tliese three classes, however, are not so 
important from the unionist point of view as the class of 



XII.] The Trtte Line of Deliverance, 385 

ordinary workman wlio for many different reasons prefers 
to be outside the Union. He is a real danger to tlie 
unionist, as when any quarrel occurs, he may take his place. 
He therefore must be brought in, until the number outside 
the Union is sufficiently reduced so as not to be dangerous. 
Here begins the temptation to coerce. The quickest way 
of securiug this end is to make life uncomfortable for the 
outsider who works in the same shop with unionists ; finally, 
unless he joins the Union, tools may be thrown down, and the 
employer have to choose between standing by a few men on 
principle or finding himself involved in a strike. But whilst 
it is necessary for the stability of the Union to bring a certain 
proportion of the ordinary outsiders into the Union, an artificial 
rate of wages cannot be maintained, if labour flows freely in 
the trade. Therefore the inflow into the trade must be 
restricted — it must be borne in mind that what I am saying 
applies only to certain trades, and that it would be an unfair 
description of many other trades — and this can be done by 
declaring that only he who has served his apprenticeship, — or 
worked for a certain number of years successively in the 
trade, — can be admitted, whilst at the same time the number 
of apprentices in a shop is limited^. Here — as so often happens 
with restrictions — there arises a difficulty, not easily got over. 
If only those who have served their apprenticeship or worked 
so many years are admitted into the union, the man w^ho has not 
done so, remains as a thorn in the side of the unionist ; if he 
who has not fulfilled such conditions is admitted, the unionist 
has lost one important means of controlling the entrance. That 
the New Unionism has other means we see by the action of the 
dockers, who simply, after limiting their own numbers, refused 
to allow any man to work who did not possess the Union ticket. 
But then what does this control of the entrance mean ? It 
means war on other kinds of labour. Just as the Union means 
a kind of war upon those in the same trade whom it is im- 
portant to bring in and yet themselves do not wish to be 

1 Mr. Howell — always, I think, a Labour, p. 274), states that about 10 
fair and just writer — in his interest- per cent, of Trade Unionists have 
ing book (^The Conflicts of Capital and served their apprenticeship. 



386 A Plea for Liberty, [xii. 

admitted, so it also means war on outside labour. It means 
that the labourers in other less well paid trades cannot find 
free access to the better paid trades, that the dam is preventing 
the true level being found, and that those inside the dam are 
profiting by keeping others out. Now that is a bad arrange- 
ment for all concerned. It is certain that artificial privilege 
works badly in the end for those who possess it, and carries 
in itself the seed of its own decay ; but this arrangement works 
badly not only remotely but also immediately and directly. 
In a restricted trade a parent may be unable to introduce his 
own child into the shop where he works ^. The thing which 
of all others he would most wish to do, to have his boy near 
him, under his eye, learning his trade, is the thing that is made 
difficult to him, where a system of restriction exists,— a re- 
striction that is increased at present by the stupid interference 
of our education laws. Never was a heavier price paid for 
a possible improvement of wage than this sacrifice of this 
most natural and healthy arrangement. But so it always 
is. The restriction we forge against others is always to our 
own grievous hurt. What I want to press upon those Trade 
Unionists, whose minds are open in this great matter, is that 
all systems of restriction hurt more than they advantage ; 
that even the better forms of Unionism are always lending 
themselves to a certain amount of restriction, if they are to be 
effective for raising wages. We see that Unionism may mean 
interference and coercion as regards certain outside labour in 
the same trade ; that it tends to cut off from itself the most 
pushing and the best men; that in some cases it dams 
back the labour that would flow into the more highly paid 
trades from less highly paid occupations ; that it puts 
difficulties in the way of the instruction by the father of his 
son in his own trade ; but besides these there are many other 
forms of restriction which are apt to spring up whenever men 

^ Mr. Howell states that many by the masters (who can be just as 

existing restrictions about appren- restrictive as the men). In many 

tices are not enforced. Though par- trades only trade-skill, health, &c., 

tially enforced in some large trades, are insisted upon as conditions of 

they are generally confined to smaller nnembership, which in view of the 

trades, and in these cases favoured benefits to be paid is quite reasonable. 



XII.] The Trtie Lhie of Deliverance. 387 

begin regulating for each other the conditions of their labour. 
The close delimitations of the labour of each trade, the rigid 
boundaries between mason, bricklayer, plasterer, and carpenter, 
often leading to much inconvenience and expense, — such as 
we see in the case of the carpenter, who was fined because he 
was seen enlarging the holes in the wall in which his joists 
were to be placed ; the rule^, that existed in one part of England, 
that bricks laid in a district should be made in the same 
district, a rule that has stopped work for want of bricks, 
though bricks in abundance were to be had close by ; the rule 
that stone dressed in the quarry must be dressed only on one 
side ; that stone ali-eady dressed must be defaced and dressed 
over again by the men employed at the works ; the rule that 
an employer building in another town must take half the men 
from his own town, even if he cannot get them ; rules 
regulating what the bricklayer's assistant may do, and for- 
bidding his rise, however competent, into the rank above 
him; the rules forbidding piece-work, the rules forbidding 
certain methods of work and payment, which are not the 
authorised method, even if those in the factory or shop prefer 
the method in question and are earning more money under it ; 
the rules enforcing a rigid uniformity in the method of doing 
work ; the rules that a man is not to run or to sweat himself 
in his employer's time ; rules against besting his fellows ; — all 
these are examples of how thick and fast restriction is apt to 
grow when once men begin to employ it as their instrument. 
It is only what we ought to expect. Restriction will always 
breed restriction, both because the first restriction is found to 
be incomplete without the second, and the second without 
the third ; and because men who once lend themselves to 
restriction acquire the temper of betaking themselves to 
restriction in face of every difficulty. 

A list of such Union sins — and let it be well understood 
that they only apply to certain trades, and some at least, 
I hope, are growing obsolete — is to be found in Mr. Thorn- 
ton's interesting book on Labour (p. 326). He himself con- 
siders that all such restrictions are not of the essence of 
Unionism. That may be true in the sense, that they are 



388 A Plea for Liberty, [xii. 

principally found in Unions -which have something of the 
nature of a monopoly. In trades, such as the cotton trade, 
where there is keen foreign competition and intelligent appre- 
ciation of the position amongst the workers, such restrictions are 
hkely to be at a minimum ; but the moment you have entered 
the path of restriction, you may be sure that whatever further 
restrictions are necessary to make your first restrictions efficient, 
will presently be employed. That is the danger of all restric- 
tion ; there are so many steps waiting to succeed to the first. 

Let us look quickly at some other faults of Trades Unions. 
It not only surrounds a man with restrictions, which every 
frank person will admit to be an evil, even if an evil accom- 
panied with good, but it does much harm by disregarding 
natural variety, by tending to throw men into one class, and 
treating them as if they were all alike. Men are not alike 
in strength, endurance, or character ; and it is much happier 
and better for them when these differences find their true 
expression. There are some men who prefer long hours and 
slow work ; some who prefer few hours and sharp work ; 
some who prefer long hours and sharp work, receiving for 
it the higher reward ; and it is a wrong and cruel system 
which ignores all these differences and dictates the same 
uniform work and same uniform pay to all men. If the life 
of labour is to be a happy life, one of the principal things 
to be done is to give every opportunity that is possible to 
the worker to follow his own manner and hours of work. At 
the British Association this year Professor A. Hadley men- 
tioned an interesting fact. In America he found that in one 
factory, where the hours were longer, less work was done 
than in another factory where the hours were shorter. Why ? 
Because the slower workers could not live the pace of the 
quicker workers, and preferred to work longer hours at the 
pace that suited them. Thus a natural sifting took place, 
which adjusted the work of the men according to their own 
likings. This is what the workers have to aim at. Not 
rigid uniformity, not an established number of hours, or one 
orthodox method, but infinite variety, meeting the var^dng 
wants of different natures. 



XII.] The True Line of Deliverance. 389 

Let it be remembered that there is no living man who can 
measure the full result of restrictions. They are always 
clumsy things, and though some of their results can be foreseen, 
they always produce some startling and unexpected results. 
In the case of Trades Unions they interfere rudely with the 
motives that influence a man's desire to do his best. Where 
piece-work is forbidden, the better worker, as we have seen, 
has to adjust himself to the pace of the slower man, he has 
to think whether or not he will do more than his comrades 
consider right. Most of us are more or less familiar with ex- 
amples where difficulties with Unions have checked attempts 
on the part of enterprising manufacturers to take a special 
branch of trade out of the hands of competing foreign coun- 
tries by impeding adaptations that were necessary for the pur- 
pose ; they are apt to lead to centralised management — one 
of the greatest curses in the world — placing the arrangements 
of the men in a particular shop with the employer at the mercy 
of some established system and the officers who enforce it; 
they sometimes hang like a thundercloud over the head of the 
best employers who desire to try new paths ; and they are 
apt to destroy the possibility of a close alliance and part- 
nership growing up between such employers and their men, 
and thus to prevent the energies of the country being freely 
given to production. 

I am not bringing these charges, which for the most part 
are very old, because I think in labour disputes the men are 
wrong and the employers right. I only bring them because 
these evils seem to me the necessary result of restrictive 
methods. I think all restriction — wherever and by whom- 
soever employed — works out badly ; and I feel sure that 
the workmen will never gain the inheritance waiting for 
them, as long as they seek to advance along that line. 

Ahead a still graver evil lurks in these restrictions. As 
I have already said, no person who once enters the road of 
restriction ever stands still. Either, conquering all former 
scruples, he goes on supplementing the old restrictions with 
new restrictions in order to make them efficient, or, disgusted 
with the odiousness of compelling men to act against their 



390 -^ Plea for Liberty, [xii. 

own wishes and of reducing them to cyphers by regulation, 
he throws up the whole attempt and retraces his steps. We 
are now reaching a point where unionists must make their 
choice. If they are to persevere in the path of restriction, 
they must be prepared to put themselves and their brother- 
workmen under a system in which their own individual wish, 
and even the wish of their own particular trade, can count 
for almost nothicg. You cannot form the xJ-oth or i^q^ 
part of a huge fighting system, and keep any real control 
over yourself. The necessities of the system as a whole will 
govern your action, and you will be carried forward with the 
general movement, whether you approve or disapprove. I 
ask Unionists to judge present Unionism, not simply by what 
we see to-day, not simply by the restrictions and coercions 
which they are occasionally tempted to employ towards their 
fellow- workmen either at the moment of a strike or when it 
is thought necessary to force men into Union, but by the 
threatened development of Trade Unionism, — all trades being 
federated into one body and negotiating with all employers, 
federated into another body. I ask them if they are willing 
to help forward such an organisation of society into these 
two hostile camps. I ask them to think of the tremendous 
power that must be lodged in a few hands ; of all the 
countless struggles and intrigues to obtain that power; of 
the worthless men who will succeed in obtaining it; of 
the fatal mistakes that will be made even by good and 
true men, holding this power in their hands ; and of the 
harsh unscrupulous use that will be made of this power to 
destroy all individual resistance that is inconvenient. I ask 
them if this is an ideal to which they are ready to devote such 
part of their lives and energies as still remain to them, to 
organise society into two great armies, always watching each 
other, and always preparing for bitter struggle ; and I ask 
them, even if, after the struggle, labour prove successful, if 
employers and capitalists were thoroughly worsted and 
obliofed to take such terms as might be dictated to them, 
would such a defeat be good for labour itself, would it make 
for its progress and its happiness? Does not the sense of 



XII.] The Trtie Line of Deliverance. 391 

absolute power in the end wreck all those who possess it ; 
are there any amongst us who are not destined to be corrupted 
by it, more surely than by any defeat or reverse that can 
happen to us 1 

Now let me turn to the economical side. Can a system of 
restrictions really better the men's position % can it better wages ? 
can it take from the employers and give to the men % I venture 
to say that the mass of evidence is distinctly against any true 
and permanent bettering of the men's position by such means. 
Certain things may be conceded at once. I think it was Mr. 
Mill who summed up the power of Trades Unions in altering 
wages, by saying that they could bring about the rise of wage 
quicker, and delay the fall somewhat longer ; and a Midland 
manufacturer has lately (Free Life, 24 May) pointed out then* 
equalising and averaging effect. Under their influence small 
masters on the one side, and some of the men on the other, do 
not grasp at every little turn of the market that takes place in 
their favour. Grant also, as Mr. Thornton points out, that if 
tremendous battles have been lost by the men, still they have 
led to after-concessions on the part of the masters in order 
to avoid a recurrence of such struggles ; and that there has 
been this good effect in certain strikes, that they have allowed 
over-large stocks to be decreased. Grant also that where 
a trade is in the nature of a monopoly, as in the case of the 
London Dockers, or in a less deoree the building trades, that 
wages may be pushed up for a tmie considerably higher than 
they would have gone^ or than they can healthily go, as 
regards the trade itself; grant all this, yet is this a sufficient 
compensation for the state of war that is established between 
men of the same trade, between different trades, and between 
employer and employed ; for all the individual inconvenience 
and restriction, and the loss of individual free action; for 
all the arbitrary things done by those in power, and the 
temptations towards coercing others ; for all the sums that go 
daily and hourly in war-subscriptions, for such sums as the 
c^427,cco of wages lost in the gi-eat Preston strike, or the 
.^''325,000 of the London building labourers in 1869, or, as 
the Economist reckons it, the millions that have been lost, all 



392 A Plea for Liberty, [xii. 

things counted, in the late Australian strike ; for all the time 
and energy of the men spent on the Unions ; and, last of all, for 
the coming perfection of Unionism, when society will be split 
into two sections, living, like France and Germany, in the 
highest state of tension towards each other ? If it can be shown 
that Unionism cannot permanently alter the wage of labour, 
and that economical injury constantly results from its action, 
would it not be wise and right for every Unionist to reconsider 
the whole matter, and ask himself if he cannot spend the very 
limited amount of time and energy, that each man possesses, 
to serve the cause of labour in some other fashion ? 

It has been often said by economists that, as wages are paid 
out of that part of capital called the wage-fund, the true 
method of increasing wages is to increase the whole body of 
capital. This doctrine has been bitterly attacked, but it has 
never been substantially shaken. It is true that some part of 
wages may be deferred, and not paid until the product of labour 
has been reahsed, but that only means that the wages fund at 
a given moment may be looked on as consisting in part of new 
capital as well as old capital ; it is also true that some products 
of labour may become capital in a few days or weeks ; it is 
also true that at certain moments the capital that has been 
produced may be increased from what has already gone into 
consumption^ as if everybody who had three coats determined 
to put one of them into the market ; but the all-important 
fact — which in reality is a mere truism — remains, that only as 
the methods of production are improved and more is pro- 
duced at less cost, can more be divided between employer 
and employed. Let it be clearly seen how the worker is 
benefited by increasing production, and by better and cheaper 
methods of production. Wages may remain the same; em- 
ployers' profits may remain the same ; and yet the labourer's 
condition be wholly changed by better production. Suppose 
that the employer and workman divide the product in the 
proportion of three to seven, three to the employer and seven 
to the workman, and suppose that the day's work to-day 
produces four, where yesterday it produced one. Then both 
the employer and workman get the advantage of seven and 



XII.] The True Line of Deliverance. 393 

three multiplied by four instead of one. It is only necessary 
for this improvement in production to affect all articles used 
by the workman, and then as regards all such articles, his 
wages remaining the same, he is better off as four to one [see 
note A at end]. A clear perception of this method by which 
labour is benefited, shows us several great truths ; how fatal 
is all protection ; how unfair to the rest of labour are any 
forms of restriction and monopoly in certain trades, inasmuch 
as these trades take more and give less in the general ex- 
change ; and how unwise are the struggles over the ratio or 
proportion in which the product is divided, when the matter 
of prime importance is to improve production, and thus in- 
crease the share falling both to employer and employed. 

The question will however be asked, in face of modem 
industrial improvements. Why then are not our labourers 
better off? Amongst other reasons, the first and foremost 
reason must be that capital is not produced fast enough, or 
economically enough, which itself arises from various reasons, 
— for instance, because of the stupid struggles between labour 
and capital ; of the far too great luxury on the part of many 
of the rich, and their lavish expenditure on perishable articles, 
which when destroyed leave the world no richer, — an ex- 
penditure, which, as they do not perceive, employs but 
wastes labour [if every rich person would religiously invest 
in industrial concerns c^i for every ^\ spent on himself, 
the change would be enormous in our prosperity] ; of imperfect 
systems of saving amongst the workmen ; of imperfect free- 
trade in several directions, especially in the matter of land ; 
of the restrictions and j ealousies of Trades Unions ; of the im- 
perfect direction of joint-stock enterprise, which is as yet 
only young in the world ; of considerable quantities of badly 
trained labour, — our reformers not paying enough attention to 
ofiering facihties for third-class men to improve themselves ; 
of the present fashion of sanitary reforms, applied oflScially 
and compulsorily, and the neglect of the individual intelligence 
of the people, on which far more depends ; of the imperfect 
development of our moral qualities in every class which leads 
to bad and untrue work of every description and to waste ; 
27 



394 ^ Plea for Liberty, [xii. 

of the meddling and muddling of big and little Governments, 
which sends capital abroad_, hinders the workmen learning how 
to associate for their own purposes, wastes an enormous amount 
of energy in political struggles, and weakens the productive 
machinery of the nation, on which everything depends ; and, 
lastly, — though many other reasons might be given, — that 
many of our ablest men do not go into trade, which is one of 
the best and noblest occupations, partly because we have 
foolish superstitions in favour of the professions, partly because 
Government exactions and restrictions, joined to labour troubles, 
not only lessen the reward of the employer, which is naturally 
but small in an old country and age of sharp competition, but 
tends to deprive the trade life of its enjoyable character. 

Is it therefore worth while, I would ask of all open-minded 
Trade Unionists, to be quarrelling about the proportion in 
which the product is to be divided, when the great aim must 
be to make the course of production easier and smoother, get 
more brains and invention devoted to the work, and every- 
where increase the points of concord and lessen the points of 
Action ? Universal Unionism would not help matters ; for 
successful production depends upon the willingness and, so to 
speak, good temper of capital, — its readiness to run risks and 
try new methods, — and the theory of universal Unionism — if 
candidly stated — is to get capital into a corner, and make a 
mere labour's drudge of it. Partial Unionism — even if effec- 
tive — is only the momentary (not the permanent) bettering of 
certain trades at the expense of other trades. Of course a 
Trade Unionist might reply that the advance of wage may be 
taken, without raising prices, from the profits of the em- 
ployers. But that is in itself unlikely to happen, and not 
even permanently profitable to the men if it does happen. 
The profits of one trade are in strict relation to the profits of 
another trade, — capital, just as labour, always tending to an 
equality, and every trade expanding by the inflow of capital 
when profits rise above the ordinary level ^. It may be replied 

^ This does not mean that the centage is always balanced by dis- 
same percentage of profit exists in advantages of various kinds, 
all trades, but that the higher per- 



XII.] The True Line of Deliverance, 395 

that this is true, allowing for some lapse of time, but that 
the profits of the employer begin to rise the moment that 
some turn in the market favours a special trade. That also 
is true ; but let us see what happens, first, if no Trade Union 
interferes ; and secondly, if it does interfere. Let us suppose 
that the price of pig-iron advances, that trade becomes brisker, 
and more iron is manufactured. The fii-st result of this is that 
unemployed men are brought in, and half-time becomes full 
time for the employed men. Good for the men in either case, 
even though for the moment there is no rise in wages. But 
increased production means lower prices, and though these 
lower prices check the employers' desire to produce, they 
also enlarge the demand of purchasers, so that we may 
suppose that the trade still goes on expanding. But this 
second expansion must result in higher wages. The un- 
filled cisterns have now been filled, and there must be an 
overflow. The unemployed have been brought in, and the 
competition amongst the masters for the men must caiTy the 
wage up. And notice in this instance that the rise has come 
about in a perfectly healthy natural manner. There have 
been no disputes ; contracts have come in and been accepted ; 
the trade has expanded and contracted according to natural 
requirements ; whilst in the case of the men the unemployed 
have first been brought in, and then wages have moved slowly 
but surely up with the expanding trade ^. Suppose also that 
the men have not at first secured the whole rise that ought to 
come to them. Are they injured? No. For if the profit of 
the masters is at all in excess it produces the very thing that 
is most in the interest of the men. They borrow capital and 
enlarge their turn-out, whilst, if the upward movement seems 
likely to last, new employers begin to enter the trade. *•' 

Now, take the other example. The same favourable move- 
ment of trade has taken place ; but this time the Union, on 
the alert, has insisted on a rise of wages. This rise of wages, 
perhaps slightly in excess of what the rise in prices justifies, 

^ Of course the two movements ployment of the unemployed would 
have been taking place together, but tend to be the first movement, 
in an unregulated condition the em- 



2,g6 A Plea for Liberty, [xii. 

may check the enterprise of the employer. Deprived of a part 
of the extra profit, he is less inclined to enlarge his business ; 
he is puzzled about the future action of the men as regards the 
contracts which are offered him ; at the same time the rise in 
prices following upon both the original movement in the trade 
and the subsequent rise in wages, is checking consumption 
and therefore checking the expanding condition of the trade, 
although so far as it exceeds the rise in wages it is tempting 
the employer to enlarge his operations. 

Now I think it is hardly possible to review the two 
processes, remembering how all strain between employers and 
employed checks production, remembering the unwise things 
that will be done on both sides, the mistakes made on both 
sides, the waste of time and energy on both sides, in offensive 
and defensive preparations, and the fatal effect of a fight at 
the moment when trade is becoming favourable, without be- 
lieving that the workman would actually gain more in wages 
(I do not speak of a trade where there is a monopoly, which 
stands on a different footing) if his Union abstained from all 
interference in the matter. The Union is so liable to make 
mistakes ; the market, left to itself, will not make mistakes. 
I suspect the Union often acts like a fisherman, who snatches 
the bait out of the fish's mouth, in his hurry to secure his 
prize, instead of waiting for the fish to pouch it. The first rise 
in a trade is the bait to the employer to enlarge his business, 
put on more hands, and accept contracts. When he has once 
taken those steps, the wage must rise ; even if the workman's 
share in the profit does not come to him quite as quickly as, 
strictly speaking, it ought, he has no occasion to repent it. It 
is probably the very best investment that he could have made. 
It is ground-bait, and with moderate patience will bring far 
more to his basket than what he loses at the moment. 

But it may be urged that all this danger may be prevented 
by the sliding scale. The sliding scale has many virtues, as it 
removes to a great extent that uncertainty from the mind of 
the employer which is so fatal to successful production. But 
the sliding scale has special difficulties of its own, as, for 
example, where different elements are concerned in the price, 



XII.] The True Line of Deliverance, 397 

so that a higher price may not mean a higher profit to the 
employer. 

Of course, Trades Unions have a power to raise wages 
for a time in trades which are a monopoly, as in the Dockers' 
Union, or in trades which are partly a monopoly, as the 
building trades. But this power is both hurtful to others 
and limited in its own extent. In the first place, such extra 
wage is taken from the pockets of their fellow-labourers. It 
is in fact nothing but war against labour. Taking advantage 
of their position, these monopolists accept the labour of their 
fellow- workmen at a lower price, whilst they charge a higher 
price for their own. And does it profit them % The trade is 
pinched and starved by the high prices ; there is perpetual 
war between employers and employed, wasting the extra gains 
of labour ; capital arms itself at all points, and retaliates ; 
quick brains begin to devise new methods of circumventing the 
monopoly and working thi-ough other trades or through other 
channels ; whilst the men succumb to the universal fate which 
overtakes all those, poor or rich, who are artificially protected, 
and begin to deteriorate in their own character. There is also 
another consideration. The men not only hurt themselves as 
consumers, by restricting their own trade, but they may 
throw out of gear other allied trades, and by depressing the 
production of these other trades still further, hurt both them- 
selves and all other workmen by reducing the general product. 
Under a free-trade system, it is impossible to measure the 
amount of disturbance that may be caused by even one dam 
being thrown across the supply of some particular labour. It 
is the interest of all other trades, as well as of the public, to 
discourage all such dams, and to make the free-trade footing 
universal for all. I do not mean that A and B should accept 
work on any terms other than those that they themselves 
approve ; but that they should throw no dam round their 
labour by preventing G from taking a share in their work or 
from accepting terms which they decline. That is the true 
labour principle, universal individual choice, and no pressure 
exerted upon others. 

Mr. Thornton (On Labour, p. 281) has supposed that in 



39S .A Plea for Liberty. [xii. 

several cases the pressure of Trades Unions can permanently 
raise wages. Whilst I respect much that he has written, I 
do not think he has thought any of these cases thoroughly 
out. Excluding a monopoly or half-monopoly, and taking the 
case of expanding trade, or of an increased product, it can be 
shown that under a free system the extra profit must even- 
tually come to the men, whilst the restriction or the pressure, 
employed to gain that profit, is likely in the end to destroy 
the extra profit by lessening the vigour and expansion of the 
trade. In the case of a universal rise of wage, he argues 
that capital would have no choice, no power of helping Jtself ; 
but a universal rise in wage, without a universal rise in price — 
which latter rise would' benefit nobody, but leave us all, with 
some momentary exceptions, as we were — is very unlikely to 
take place. The fact that capital goes so largely abroad 
shows that, as things are, we are near the margin of profit ; 
and a slight unfriendly pressure exercised upon capital, a slight 
discouragement to its investment, would probably do far more 
in reducing wages by reducing the amount of capital employed, 
than in raising wages by raising the proportion of the product 
which comes to the labourer. Independently of this, the 
truth is, that the greater becomes the pressure of Trade 
Unions, the greater tends to be the rate of profit demanded 
by capital, in order to recoup risks and inconveniences, 
just as the existence of usury laws drives up instead of 
lowering the rate of interest ; whilst the less the pressure 
and interference of the Unions, the lower tends to sink the 
rate of profit. Lastly, Mr. Thornton instances the case of 
much capital invested in buildings and plant, which could 
be nipped safely by the union because it could not be with- 
drawn without great loss. But that is profit for the moment 
at the cost of sacrificing the profit for the future. ' Once 
bit, twice shy.' The capital which is so treated avoids the 
trade in question, like a plague-infested district, and the trade 
suffers grievously instead of profiting by such folly. Nor 
is it right to say a Trades Union could permanently raise 
wages in the case of increased product. If such increase were 
general over the whole field of production, all the labourers 



XII.] The True Line of Deliverance, 399 

would profit, with or without Trade Unions, for there would be 
a larger product-fund to be divided amongst them, and 
each man's labour would exchange for more. It should 
however be remarked that an increased product in one 
trade, other trades remaining undeveloped and inactive, 
would not directly benefit the labourers of that trade, — except 
so far as they consumed their own product — since they would 
receive only small quantities of the products of other trades 
in exchange for their own larger product. It would, how- 
ever, benefit them indu-ectly, for it would imply that their 
trade was in a vigorous and expanding condition, and was 
probably in the hands of a higher and more efficient class of 
employer. Mr. Thornton also says (276) that if in an expand- 
ing trade with rising prices, the employers were to raise wages, 
then there would be no need for capital to come in (and thus 
reduce prices and presently wages, by restoring the balance of 
supply and demand) ; but that the employer would go on receiv- 
ing only normal profits, whilst the trade remained stationary. 
He forgets, however, that the labourer, having got the whole 
rise, is at once placed in an abnormal position, and that other 
labourers would be attracted to his trade. The consequence 
would be that the labourer with the extra profit must either 
dam back by some artifice the inflowing labour, or lose his 
extra profit. He therefore would not be profited except at 
the expense of other labour. 

Moreover, at the same time Mr. Thornton ignores the meaning 
of the rise in price. The rise in price almost always indicates 
greater demand, in some form, and as all large works pay 
better when fully employed, the production would be at 
once increased and new capital be necessarily brought in. 
Each employer would know that another employer would 
begin to run full time ; and if he did not, it would be at the 
expense of the whole public, who would run short of their 
supply, and pay higher prices than they need pay. 

Perhaps here it is right to say one word about high wages. 
They may be the truest sign of national health and vigour; 
or they may be just the reverse. If they are the result of 
monopoly, because in some special field labour has cornered 



400 A Plea for Liberty. [xii. 

capital, and by violence has driven other labour out of com- 
petition, or the result of the high prices existing under a pro- 
tective tariff, they only indicate unhealth of the body economical, 
and are sure to be accompanied or followed by disturbances of 
various kinds ; if they are the result of perfectly free competi- 
tion existing everywhere, then they are the truest sign of 
health, for they show that capital is abundant ; that being safe 
and unharassed, it is content with a small reward ; that the 
labour itself is of high quality and therefore rightly commands 
a high reward, and that the product which is being turned 
out is sufficient to give this high reward to the labourer. 
Blessed would be such a country; for one could safely say of 
it, that the good sense, the self-restraint, the friendliness 
between classes, and the intelligence of its people were as 
fully expressed in those high wages as its adherence to that 
perfect free-trade and perfect competition which are the only 
equitable conditions for all. 

Here however it might be urged, as it would be by some 
economists, that all this is true, demonstrably true, that it 
is only a truism to say that the labour of the country never 
can obtain for itself, except at the expense of other labour, 
more than the free and open market will yield, but that such 
a regulation of wages belongs to a state of perfect compe- 
tition ; that competition is still very far from perfect ; that 
the labourer cannot take his labour to the best market and 
make the best price of it ; that often ignorance on his part 
and other difficulties stand in his way ; that there is amongst 
employers that ^ tacit combination ' of which Adam Smith 
spoke ; and therefore that the Union of the workman is the 
necessary answer to the imperfections of the market [see note 
B at end.] Granted, if you like ; granted, that competition 
is not perfect, that there are many obstacles in the way of the 
labourer obtaining the perfectly just rate — ^ust as declared by 
competition — in the open market, yet what is the true course 
to follow % To turn our backs on the method which must be 
pronounced to be the true one, because it is still imperfect, 
and plunge into an interminable morass of restriction and 
regulation, through which we can only make our way by 



XII.] The True Line of Deliverance. 401 

guess-work and reckless adventure ; or, instead of this, press 
steadily on in what we know is the true direction, and 
gradually remove the obstacles in our way ? What we have 
to fear is not competition, but imperfect competition. No 
man, whether he is street-sweeper or writer of the highest 
philosophy, can reasonably claim more than what his work is 
worth to his fellow-men. Suppose that every man's work 
could be put up at a national auction, and sold with the whole 
nation as bidder, could any man reasonably complain of the 
result ? He would have obtained the highest that his fellow- 
countrymen were willing to give ; he has no title to more ; 
and if by any device he succeeds in extracting more, he is 
behaving with something that is very near to dishonesty, 
since he is forcing this higher price at the expense of others. 

Now let us see how far such perfect competition as I have 
sketched, a competition, under which men could realise the 
true value of their labour according to the wants of their 
fellow-men, is possible. In old days it was not possible. 
When villages and country towns lay cut off from each other, 
and ignorant of each other's doings, there could only be local 
not general competition. Now all is changed. Now-a-days 
we have both publicity and mobility. The spread of the press, 
the post that penetrates everywhere, the railways that link us 
together, all these are making it more and more possible for 
men to know the value of their labour and to offer it in the 
best market. Of course there are still left many restrictions 
and impediments, and many things still left to do to perfect 
the free labour mart — that outcome of a very high civilisation. 
Amongst these restrictions are the restrictions of trades-unions, 
at which I have abeady glanced, which may limit the numbers 
engaged in a trade, which may disallow the non-unionist 
working with the unionist, and prevent a man acquiring a trade 
at any moment of his life. Till these restrictions are done 
away with, there can be no true labour mart. To get rid of 
these restrictions must be the work of a reforming party within 
the unions themselves ; whilst the employers go on steadily 
with their present policy of opening registers of what is called 
* free-labour,' and then of organising the free-labour men into 



402 A Plea for Liberty, [xii. 

unions for their own protection. To be weak is miserable 
indeed, and the non-union men will only take their proper 
place by acting together. But when these restrictions are re- 
moved, there is a good deal to be done. Every place should 
weekly report the state and the wants of its labour market, — 
one statement being made by employers, one by the men ; the 
Gazette of the Unions might contain notice of every shop and 
the number of men employed in it, with notes both by the men 
and the employer as to wages offered and the class of labour 
wanted. Unions might also probably do something in the way 
of owning and letting lodgings for their own members in 
search of work ; and different trades could be combined for 
the same purpose. Once the great mass of our workmen re- 
cognise that the true and fair policy for all is making the 
labour-market as free of access as possible to all, of diffusing 
the widest information, and leaving every class of labour in 
the same trade to accept its own rate of pay and work its own 
number of hours, much can be done to help this object. The 
needful thing is to get effort into the right direction. To make 
it clear, let me sketch what would be the attitude of the men 
under the new state of things, and the part which their unions 
would play. They would stand on this ground. They would 
leave every man free to settle his own price of labour, just as 
every shopkeeper settles his own prices^ though all prices would 
be published and some might be recommended. They would 
let every man follow his own inclination as to the number of 
hours he worked, or the character of his work, — the result of 
which would be that a natural differentiation would take place, 
some workshops running longer, some shorter hours ; some con- 
taining the pick of the workers, some the second-class and some 
the third-class men. They would break down every fence that 
prevented a man acquiring a trade for which he had an apti- 
tude, and there would be nothing to prevent clever men, as 
happens even now in a limited way, following different trades 
at different times. There would be no minimum of wage, 
except such as each man chose to fix for himself, and there 
would be no strikes, such as exist to-day. In the case of a 
serious disagreement between an employer and his men, the 



XII.] The True Line of Deliverance. 403 

union would remove all such men as wished to leave, giving 
them an allowance for so many weeks whilst they were finding 
new employment. But there would be no effort to prevent 
the employer obtaining new hands. All that had happened 
would be stated in the Union Gazette, and it would be left for 
those who chose to engage themselves at the vacant shop, to 
do so. There would be no strike, no picketing, no coercion 
of other men, no stigmatising another fellow- workman as 
' scab,' or ' knobstick,' or ' blackleg,' because he was ready to 
take a lower wage, — all this would be left perfectly free for each 
man to do according to what was right in his own judgment. 
If the employer had behaved badly, the true penalty would 
fall upon him ; those who wished to leave his service would do 
so ; and the facts of the case would be published. That would 
be at once the true penalty and the true remedy. Further 
than that in labour disputes has no man a right to go. He 
can throw up his own work, but he has no right to prevent 
others accepting that work. 

Under this system there would be no unions of exactly the 
present type, but there would be far more association amongst 
the men. The probability is that almost every man would 
belong to some form of union. Information would be the 
first great purpose. Information would not only be supplied 
about labour and the state of the market, but about the 
character of the shops. The employers would state their terms 
and the quality of the labour they required. Publicity would 
be an important agent of improvement ; those workshops in 
which the comfort and health of the worker were specially 
cared for would be described, and . the efiect of their good ex- 
ample would be to bring others slowly up from their lower 
level. At the same time the men, now that they had ceased to 
pile up great funds which might at any time be dissipated in 
war, would invest far more in remunerative undertakings. 
The Union being no longer a war-machine would serve man^r 
great purposes. One great object that lies before every work- 
man is to have two sources of revenue ; his labour earnings, 
and his return from industrial investments. If all the money 
wasted in labour-war had been invested in industrial concerns, 



404 A Plea for Liberty, [xii. 

wages would be higher than they are now, and the men 
would be part owners of a considerable amount of the indus- 
trial machinery of the country, having gained the increased 
wealth, the business knowledge, and the influence, which would 
follow from such part ownership. Investment for their mem- 
bers will be a leading function of the new unions. By means 
of the weekly subscriptions they will be always buying shares 
in the industries of the district, in water, gas, omnibus, tram- 
car, dock and railway companies, in the great industrial 
concerns where their members work, and then passing these 
shares on to the individual members, as the small weekly 
payment comes up to the required amount. So also with land 
and houses. The Unions would act as house-building societies, 
building or purchasing houses, and then passing them on in 
return for small monthly payments to their members. Those 
members who did not wish to purchase would hire direct from 
the Union, which would itself become a large owner of house 
property for this purpose, of a better and more convenient 
character than those houses in which workmen now hve. 
More than this, every Union of town-workers would have its 
farm in the country, — held in good fee-simple, and not under 
any imperfect land-nationalisation tenure, — which would pro- 
vide pleasant and healthful change for its members in turn. 
Members would erect their own wooden rooms for the summer ; 
there would be a sanatorium, and possibly certain articles, like 
fresh eggs and milk, would be regularly supplied to those who 
cared to make such an arrangement. The Union would also 
offer certain training advantages. When work was slack and 
men were unemployed, workshops would be open where men 
would acquire a facility in the use of certain tools, and the power 
of taking up other kinds of work. It is hardly too much to say 
that every man would be more independent in life if he were up 
to a certain point a carpenter. At times of depression there are 
many simple things for his own domestic use that each man 
might make; and just as so many Norwegian farmers work in 
silver or make boats during the long winter evenings, so should 
the great bulk of English workmen have other occupations to 
fall back upon in times of non-employment. Besides the 



XII.] The Trtie Line of Deliverance, 405 

workshops, there would be educational opportunities, so that 
no unemployed man would let his time be wasted, as so 
cruelly happens at present. The New Union, like some of the 
London workmen's clubs, would have many different funds, — 
each purpose, at which I have glanced, having its own fund, 
to which each member would subscribe or not as he chose ; 
the out-of-employment fund, the benefit fund, the intelligence 
fund, the investing fund, the house-owning fund, the land- 
owning fund, the educational or workshop fund, and such 
other funds as were found desii*able. Those who had chosen 
to subscribe to the educational fund, might in a serious time of 
depression be altogether withdrawal for some months from the 
labour-market, — a voluntary levy of the other workers being 
added to their own fund. 

I cannot follow any further, as I should like to do, the use- 
ful operations which the New Union would perform for the 
men. Once relieved from the miserable duty of fighting the 
employer, its energies would be called out in many directions, 
which are scarcely in the region of imagination at present. 
There is no want, intellectual or physical, which they would not 
strive to supply, often in competition with the open market, — 
as can be seen to-day from what the best of the London clubs 
are beginning to do for the men. Sometimes, perhaps often, 
they would be beaten by what the trader ofiered, sometimes 
they would beat the trader ; but the outcome would be for the 
ever-increasing advantage of the men. That is the true use 
of co-operation, to act as another competitive force, and thus to 
improve, not to replace, the competitive forces that are already 
in existence, whilst it is itself continually improved by them. 

Such would be a part of the result of the abandonment by 
the men of their war-organisations. The whole result I cannot 
sketch here; I can only lay stress upon the vast effect of 
transferring the energy and intelligence that are spent to-day 
upon war-purposes to the direct purpose of reconstructing the 
circumstances of the workman's life. Now let us look in 
another direction, — at the effect upon capital of substituting 
peace for war. Capital relieved of all attacks and of all mis- 
givings would become intensely active. The same wise spirit 



4o6 A Plea for Liberty, [xii. 

in the men which had led them to abandon all attacks upon it 
through their organisations, would also lead them to put a 
sharp curb upon the mischievous activities of the politician, 
and to prevent his happy-go-lucky interference with it. 
Capital would thus have that sense of complete security, which 
is beyond all value to it. It would know that under all circum- 
stances it would receive its full market reward, however small 
it might be. The consequences would be that this country 
would become the home and storehouse of capital. Capital, 
which now so largely drifts abroad into very speculative enter- 
prises, because in so many matters it feels uncertain about the 
future, would prefer to develop new home enterprises ; and not 
only would wages rise, but many useful commercial undertak- 
ings would be carried out on behalf of the workmen which now 
are left undone. In two senses the workmen, if they so choose 
it, may become the masters of capital. They may encourage 
capital to such an extent, that the competition of capitahsts 
will drive the reward of labour up to the highest point, 
and the reward of capital down to the lowest point ; and 
secondly, being the largest body of consumers, they may have 
capital at their feet, trying to find out and discover their every 
v/ill and pleasure. We have had lately a significant example 
of this new disposition of capital in railway travelling. The 
third-class passenger is found to be of more im.portance to the 
railway company than any other passenger ; henceforth his con- 
venience and his pleasure will be more and more appreciated, 
whilst the first and second-class passenger will sink in the 
scale of consideration. Then the ready inflow of capital does 
so much to keep all trades in a healthy and vigorous condition, 
and thus to raise the general product, and thus to raise wages. 
With capital come in new brains, new methods, new machinery. 
The old, cramped and perhaps unwholesome factory, with its 
obsolete machinery, cannot live alongside of its new rival, and 
is gradually weeded out. The second-class employer and un- 
thrifty manager is removed in the same way. Thus both effici- 
ency is always obtaining, where capital flows freely in, and the 
product is always tending to increase. Let it be said again 
and again that upon the increase of this product depends 



XII.] The Trtie Line of Deliverance, 407 

the prosperity of the workmen, as a body. If this product is 
small, no earthly ingenuity, no organisation, no government 
systems, no grants in aid^ no form of protection, can make the 
general condition of the labourers good. It is altogether past 
praying for. If, on the other hand, this product is large^ and 
goes on steadily increasing beyond the increase of population, 
whilst all industrial processes are being improved in them- 
selves, nothing can prevent the material prosperity of the 
workmen. Of course, as happens with every class, we may 
through mental and moral deficiencies throw away a large 
part of such prosperity ; but with time will come the develop- 
ment of the qualities that are still lacking. One thing however 
— before alluded to — is worth repeating. A special trade may 
be working on free-trade principles and producing largely, and 
yet its members may not be better off than the members 
of other trades. They are not better off, just because other 
trades are cramped and restricted, are repelling capital, are 
not doing their duty in the general work of production. The 
first trade adds bountifully to the general wealth, but receives 
in poor proportion from the others ; these others profit by 
its large production, whilst it itself sufiers from their re- 
stricted production. It is the workmen's interest therefore 
that no trade-monopoly should exist anywhere, that every 
trade should be free from restrictions, should be attracting 
capital, should be producing largely and efficiently, so that in 
every direction where each man exchanges the product of his 
own labour, he should receive much in return. Moreover, the 
efficient direction of labour and the efficient production which 
take place where capital flows in freely help the workman in 
another manner. The middleman tends to be eliminated, and 
then there is more to be divided. He can only be safely 
eliminated by natural processes. Sometimes he is of real 
use and helps productiou ; sometimes he is not ; but this 
cannot be decided by a blind strike, but only by allowing the 
forces of competition to act upon him. 

The point then that I urge upon Trade Unionists and all work- 
men is the same point I should urge upon nations. Seek to get 
rid of war. Seek to get rid of the war-organisation, which is 



4o8 A Plea for Liberty. [xii. 

a terrible hindrance to all developments of a higher kind. Give 
up attacking capital. Leave capital to reduce its own reward, 
•which it will do far more effectually than you can do, by 
competition with itself. Create for it the most favourable 
atmosphere. Cultivate with all the better employers friendly 
personal relations. Disregard stories of excessive profits. Here 
and there some men, possessing powers of a very high order, 
and excelling in commercial judgment and aptitude for or- 
ganisation, may build up great fortunes. Don't grudge such 
men a single penny of their wealth. They are the true 
servants and helpers of all. Remember that all ordinary 
profits are tending to fall. Indeed some economists go so far 
as to believe that in the future money will cease to pay 
interest. Be this true or not, let us suppose for a moment 
that by giving up Trade Union war the workmen should see, if 
it were only for a time, a large profit left in the hands of 
capitalists, whilst no rise took place in their own wages ; would 
that be an unmixed evil for them ? The answer must be ' No.' 
Because not only, as we have seen, would such trade be 
increasingly prosperous, but because the high profit is the 
very stimulus that is wanted to develop the workmen's 
co-operative and joint-stock association. The difficulty that 
now stands in the way of these associations is that small 
trade profits are not easily made, large trade profits with 
difficulty. If a large profit could be made easily in any trade, 
workmen's combinations could at once come into existence. 
Thus, looked at in every way, the workman has the ball at 
his feet, if only he will not kick it away from him. As the 
wealth of the country increases, larger and larger shares of it 
must come to him. He has only to let the natural processes go 
on, to resist all temptation to fight, or to rely upon artificial 
protection for his labour, and thus to shield himself from the 
stimulus which we all want to keep our good qualities free 
from rust, whilst he turns his spare energies in the direction 
of carrying out the things which most affect his comfort 
and happiness, and puts all his spare cash religiously into 
industrial investments, to become, as he is probably entitled 
to be, the true owner of this world and all that therein is, — 



XII.] The True Line of Deliverance. 409 

with a few spare corners perhaps left for the rest of us idlers. 
Honestly, happily, with no hurt and no oppression of others, 
he can obtain all that the State-Socialist vainly promises at the 
end of useless crime and revolution, — for crime and revolution 
will not bring it ; they are instruments that defeat themselves, 
—and far more, for he can obtain it, whilst he preserves that 
priceless gift of remaining the master of his own actions, and 
not being under the regulation of other men. See note C at end. 
A few last words. Of course this abandonment of industrial 
war on the part of the workmen would be nearly in vain, if 
the politician is still allowed to play his usual high antics upon 
his own stage, if capital is to be harassed by ill-considered 
laws, its reward filched from it, and thus the growing inclination 
to invest is to be checked, if land is to be rated in such fashion, 
that the tenth part or the fifth part, or more, is taken of its 
yearly value, if it is to be tied up in a new form of settlement 
by such stupidities as compulsory Compensation for improve- 
ment Acts, if everybody who climbs to power is to indulge 
his fancies and speculations at the expense of other people, if 
public departments are to spend without any real control from 
the public, if every new interest is to have its own department 
and its own minister, with the special office of securing to 
it a share of the public doles that are going, if the number of 
officials is to mount higher every year, and the area of re- 
gimentation is to grow larger, if municipalities and county 
councils are to be encouraged to undertake trade on their 
own account, and to be the instruments of preserving mono- 
polies for certain favoured bodies of workmen, if local debts are 
steadily to increase, with little or nothing to show of permanent 
value in return, if splendid salaries are to be the politician's 
dazzling reward, if huge showy reforms, afiecting only the 
outside of things, are to be encouraged, and ail the healthy con- 
ditions for personal improvement to be made light of by the law- 
makers, if free arrangements between employers and employed 
are to be prevented, and schemes like Employers' Liability 
(with all the mischief of uniformity about them) are to be 
forced on the whole nation, if lawyers and doctors are to enjoy 
monopolies, with all the vices and few of the apologies of trades- 



4IO A Plea for Liberty, [xii. 

unions about them, if every blessed occupation in turn, in- 
cluding accountants, teachers, journalists, and I presume at 
last street-sweepers, are to ask for charters and are to regulate 
their own numbers, under the flimsy plea of saving the public 
from incompetence, if the workmen's thoughts and energies 
are all to be given to these worthless political methods and 
to the barren struggle for power over each other, if the lies, 
self-seeking and hypocrisy of party warfare are to reign 
supreme in our hearts, — then the immense gain which would 
come from a cessation of industrial war will be neutralised 
both by other forms of monopoly and by the continuance of 
political war. Both forms are equally mischievous. Both in 
due time will destroy the nations that give themselves up to 
them, for both are opposed to the great principle on which 
alone happy and progressive society can be founded, — the 
unflinching respect for every man's will about his own actions. 

AUBERON HeRBEET. 



XII.] The True Line of Deliverance. 411 



NOTES. 

Note A, p. 393. 

As Professor Cairnes pointed out, whilst all improvements in 
manufactures help the workman, what tells against him is that his 
special article of consumption, food, gets dearer, as population in- 
creases, and lower-class soils are called into requisition. Against 
this, however, a good deal has to be set off. We have probably nearly 
as much room left for new knowledge and improvement in method, 
as regards the growth of food, and the use and preparation of food, 
as there is in other directions. We have only to think of unsettled 
questions, as regards sewage, the possibilities of certain plants storing 
up nitrogen from the air, and the growth of vegetarianism as a diet, 
to realise what changes the food question may undergo. Moreover, 
the workmen's wants are now extending in so many directions. 
Clothing, literature of all kinds, implements, better house accommo- 
dation, materials of culture and amusement, locomotion from railways 
to bicycles, and many other things, now begin to form a regular part 
of his budget ; and as regards all these articles, he takes his enlarged 
share that results from improved production. The effect of modern 
years has been to call into existence an increasing number of articles, 
which are of increasing importance to him. 

Professor Cairnes also laid stress upon another point adverse to the 
workman. A large quantity of capital in a manufacturing country 
tends to take a fixed form, to be invested in machinery and buildings ; 
and such fixed capital represents the profits of employers, and a 
permanent tax, therefore, that has to be paid to them. It is true ; 
and for that reason I so earnestly desire to see a regular organised 
movement amongst workmen for investment, so that they might 
gradually become the part-ovmers of this fixed capital. Every work- 
man should religiously invest something, if only 2c?. a week, for this 
object; and every workman shordd belong to a Union that would 



412 A Plea for Liberty. [xii. 

make the investment for him. One other point, however, of an 
opposite tendency should he considered. As capital flows plentifully 
into a trade, bringing with it better machinery and better buildings, 
at first the owner of such better equipment obtains a higher profit 
than the owner of second-rate working material. He is like the 
owner of a better soil, and gets the difference of profit that exists 
between the two soils. But presently in manufacture the second-rate 
man tends to be eliminated, and the competition is then between men, 
who once were the best men in the trade, but after a few years only 
represent the average, — having yielded the first place to later comers, 
who in their turn bring in later improvements. The consequence of 
this is that production is improved, the whole product is increased, 
and all concerned — except the manufacturer, who has fallen from the 
first to the second place — get a larger quantity as their share. The 
workman's share of the product is not increased in proportion (as 
regfards the employer), but it is increased in actual quantity, because 
the product itself is increased. In this way fixed capital is on the 
side of the workman; as a tax, it is always tending to disappear; 
always tending to drive inferior and old-fashioned industrial 
apparatus out of existence, and thus to lessen the cost of pro- 
duction, and to give larger amounts of the product both to 
the employer and the employed, though the proportions that go 
to them respectively are unchanged. Here lies the whole gist of 
the matter. The workman has simply to care about the increase of 
the product, leaving the market to arrange the proportions that come 
to him. They will be increasingly in his favour. It is indeed to the 
workman more than to any other person that free-trade is of vital 
importance. The man who wants to be protected is the second-rate 
employer, with backward methods, who feels that he is being squeezed 
out by the better methods. One can only be very sorry for his 
position, which is often a hard one ; but to protect him is to sacrifice 
general prosperity. 

Note B, p. 400. 

As regards combinations of masters, it must not be forgotten that 
it is in the interest of masters in some trades to preserve a state of 
restriction and monopoly ; since, partly owing to the restricted numbers 
of the men, trade secrets, &c., they are able to make it difficult for new 
capital to enter such trades. It is in these cases that combinations of 



XII.] The Trtte Line of Deliverance. 413 

masters for settling wages are likely to be successfully carried out. In 
open trades the new employer is unlikely to enter into any such com- 
bination. He brings with him the advantage of all new improvements, 
probably has considerable capital behind him, and is determined to 
get good labour, even if he pays a slightly higher price than the market 
price. If the men would resolutely determine in their own general 
interest to discountenance a close or restricted trade anywhere, 
they might depend, under the circumstances of to-day, upon the influx 
of new capital for making any combination of masters in the long run 
untenable. Should such combination be maintained, no better field 
could be found for a co-operative association, or a joint-stock company, 
run by the men. 

Note C, p. 409. 

It might be well to summarise here the two things which seem of 
paramount importance to the workmen. First, the carrying out of a 
reform within the Unions, in <the direction of giving to each man 
a much wider choice as regards his own conduct. For example, no 
central authority should override the terms which any shop chooses 
to make with the employer; and only those who individually wish 
to strike should do so. Secondly, the abandonment of struggles with 
capital over wages. It must be remembered that everything turns 
upon the willing temper of capital. Capital stands on this vantage 
ground, that to set production going, or to increase it, it must be 
attracted, eager, and filled with confidence. We have therefore to 
insist upon these general truths, — that all war between capital and 
labour is fatal to the general good ; that it cannot permanently 
increase wages, seeing that higher wages can only permanently come 
from larger and cheaper production, and that capital must be coaxed, 
not bullied, into the perfect performance of its true service ; that 
capital should be thoroughly secure and at ease, so that on account of 
this ease it should be content with a lower reward, itself by compe- 
tition with itself reducing that reward ; that no violence or threat of 
violence from any quarter should be offered it ; that employers should 
be constantly tempted to invest their profits in their business, thus 
enlarging their operations and increasing the fund that gives employ- 
ment ; that a certain part of the capital that now goes abroad should 
by this increased sense of security be kept at home ; that the fullest 
encouragement should be given to employers to introduce improved 



414 A Plea for Liberty, [xii. 

processes and improved machinery, no employer being afraid to invest 
the largest sums of money permanently in his business ; that by such 
improved processes all articles should be manufactured at the lowest 
possible price, thus ensuring to the workman the highest return from 
his wages, and thus favouring this country as regards the exportation 
of articles ; that in no trade should there be any restriction or 
monopoly, seeing that the higher prices derived from such restriction 
and monopoly are obtained at the expense of other workmen, who 
only receive free trade prices for their labour, whilst themselves 
paying to such monopolists protective prices ; that all labour should 
be free to move in such channels as best suited it, and that efforts 
should be directed to perfect the competition of the open market, as 
offering both the truest and justest return for the labour of each, — 
such return being m.easured by the wants of the public ; that work- 
men should be more and more induced to invest in industrial concerns, 
thus becoming the owners of the fixed capital of the country, and thus 
possessing a second source of income in addition to wages ; that in- 
vesting Unions should be formed for this purpose ; that no foolish 
legislative steps should be taken to restrict or impede joint-stock 
enterprise, and thus to throw fresh difficulties in the path of the 
workman becoming possessed of capital; and that the politician 
should not be allowed either to come between the employer and the 
employed, in the arrangement of their affairs, or to interfere with 
the profits of the employer, upon which the whole fabric of production 
rests, and with it the prosperity of the workmen. 



THE END. 



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